Daily Times

Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) has awarded contract Package III C amounting to US$ 6.28729 million for design and supply of two 220 KV, 168.75 MVA Generator Step-up (GSU) Transformers for Unit No. 9 and 10 of Mangla Refurbishment Project and the Chinese Contractor will complete the task in 400 days.

The contract signing ceremony was held at WAPDA House, said a press release. General Manager (Hydel) Development WAPDA Mr. Ihsan Ullah and Chief Representative of the Chinese firm CHINT Mr. Zyphyr Zhao signed the contract on behalf of their organizations.

Member (Finance) WAPDA Naveed Asghar Chaudhry and Member (Power) WAPDA Mr. Jamil Akhtar witnessed signing of the contract. PD Mangla Refurbishment Project along with the officers concerned, representatives of the Consultants and the Contractor also attended the ceremony.

WAPDA is implementing Mangla Refurbishment Project with an approved PC-I cost of Rs.52.224 billion. The Project is being carried out in various phases, wherein the generating units are to be refurbished by closing down one tunnel (two generating units) at a time.

Refurbishment of the first two units has been completed in 2022, while refurbishment of all 10 generating units is likely to be accomplished by year 2027-28 in a phased manner.

Mangla Refurbishment Project, on its completion, will enhance generation capacity of the existing Mangla Hydel Power Station from 1000 MW to 1310 MW, thus registering an increase of 310 MW. The average annual generation of Mangla Hydel Power Station will also increase from 5 billion units to 6.6 billion units.

USAID is providing US$150 million as grant and AFD France is providing Euro 90 million as loan for Mangla Refurbishment Project, while rest of the amount is being arranged by WAPDA through loans and from its own resources.