PESHAWAR: Caretaker Chief Minister retired Justice Syed Arshad Hussain Shah here on Wednesday directed authorities to finalise a plan to complete ongoing hydropower projects being executed by Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (Pedo).

A statement said that he was chairing a meeting of Pedo Policy Board at Chief Minister’s House. The caretaker provincial minister for science and information technology, Dr Najeebullah, the adviser to chief minister on energy and power, Syed Sarfaraz Ali Shah, the additional chief secretary of planning and development, Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah, the secretary of energy and power, Nisar Ahmed, the chief executive officer of Pedo, Naeem Khan, and other members of the board attended the meeting.

The chief minister also directed the officials to fast track the ongoing projects and initiate new feasible schemes in the province.

He directed the authorities concerned to immediately appoint the chief executive officer of newly-established ‘Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Grid and Transmission Company’ to make it fully functional without any delay.

The chief minister ordered the officials to accelerate work on the execution of already approved plan of Pedo for hydel power generation. He said that significant progress should be made to increase power generation in the next few months.

He said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was blessed with abundant water resources. He added that a comprehensive strategy with fast track implementation plan was required to make the province self-sufficient in power generation by utilising those resources to the maximum.

“We can not only provide affordable and environment-friendly electricity to our people but can also create tremendous employment opportunities for them by providing additional electricity to local industries at relatively cheaper rates,” said the chief minister. He said that the caretaker provincial government wanted to complete public welfare projects on time.

The meeting was briefed about newly-prepared draft of ‘service regulations’ for the chief of executive of Pedo and members of executive committee. The meeting decided that a committee headed by adviser for energy and power would further scrutinise the draft and submit it for final approval within the next two weeks.

Relevant authorities were also directed on the occasion to formulate financial rules for Pedo as soon as possible. The participants of the meeting were briefed on various aspects of wheeling model for providing electricity to local industries.

The chief minister said that wheeling model was of vital importance for providing uninterrupted electricity to industries at cheaper rates. He directed officials to speed up work on extending that facility to other industrial units in the province. Issue of net hydel profit and other various matters related to federation were also discussed in the meeting.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2023