Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Finance Dr Miftah Ismail Friday said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government had added 12,230 megawatts (MW) additional electricity in the national grid during the last five years.

Presenting federal budget for the year 2018-19 in the National Assembly, he said the government invested heavily in the energy sector and fulfilled its promise of availability and generation of additional electricity by complection projects based on a diverse mix of low cost power generation sources including coal, RLNG, wind, solar and hydel.

Elaborating the projects, the minister said 969 MW Neelum Jehlum Hydropower project, a run-of-river hydropower project, had been completed, which is an engineering marvel with 90% of the plant being underground in the high mountainous area.

He said enhancement of Tarbela power station with addition of fourth unit, which is contributing an additional 1,410 MW of power to the transmission system. The government also completed 3,600 MW of RLNG-based power plants in Haveli Bahadu Shah, Bhikki and Balloki, while Pakistan’s first super-critical coal fired power plants located in Sahiwal and Port Qasim Coal (north and south) had been started operation, he added.

Besides, Miftah said 680 MW Chashma Nuclear Power Plants C-3 and C-4 have come online and over 1,000 MW renewable energy projects have been achieved with zero fuel costs.

However, he said, these projects were not the end of the government’s investment in the electricity sector as in the upcoming budget there was a proposal to invest Rs 138 billion in power sector.

Giving details, he said, Rs 27.5 billion have been allocated for installation of two 600 MW coal fired power projects in Jamshoro, Sindh, While Rs 76 billion have been allocated for DasuHydro Power Poject for Stage-one in district Kohistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Rs 32.5 billion have been allocated for Neelum Jhelum Hydro Power Project and Rs 13.9 billion for Tarbela Fourth Extension Hydro Power Project.

Published in Daily Times, April 28^th 2018.