LAHORE, Oct 30: In addition to initiating construction work on the 4,500-megawatt Diamer-Bhasha Dam Project next year, six mega hydropower projects will be undertaken during 2010-12, says Wapda chairman Shakil Durrani.

Talking to a delegation of the 89th Management Course of National School of Public Policy here on Thursday, he said these projects, including Kohala, Dasu, Bunji, Munda and Palas Valley, would generate about 21,000MW electricity on their completion and help improve the low-cost hydel power proportion in the national grid.

Earlier, the delegation was told that Pakistan has been blessed with the identified hydropower potential of more than 54,000MW, but only 16 per cent of this potential has so far been tapped owing to a host of reasons.

After its bifurcation last year, Wapda is fully focused on water and hydropower development. The work on 969MW Neelum-Jhelum Hydroelectric Project has already started, while feasibility studies and detailed engineering designs of most of the mega projects in both water and power sectors are currently at the advance stages and likely to be completed by the next year, it was further told.

The delegation was informed that Pakistan is storing only 11 per cent of the annual water flows of its rivers and, if this capacity is not increased, it will be a water-short country by 2012. The delegation was told that the accumulative gross storage capacity of Tarbela, Mangla and Chashma reservoirs that originally used to be 18.37 million acre feet (MAF), has reduced to 13.24MAF due to sedimentation, resulting in 28 per cent loss of storage capacity.

Another 20 million acres of virgin land could be brought under irrigated agriculture in the country if the water is made available by constructing new dams, the officials said.

The delegation was also briefed on the projects being executed under ‘Vision 2025’.

Pepco Managing Director Fazal Ahmad Khan, dilating upon the various short- and long-term measures, said the company is striving to minimise the gap between consumption and generation of electricity. He told the delegation that the government had made arrangements for induction of more than 9,000MW to the national grid from January 2009 to December 2012.

A number of reforms are being introduced to make the power sector of Pakistan more efficient and customer-friendly, he added.