ISLAMABAD: The government, even after taking loans from the international leading agencies, has completely failed to start the construction of Jamshoro coal power project despite the lapse of almost three years.
The mega project would produce 1,320 Megawatts of electricity. According to reports released by Asian Bank in January 2016, it was revealed that neither any physical construction work on ground could be kicked off nor the environment monitoring programme could be developed yet for the project.
The project was originally conceived by the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government but sitting Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif had signed the agreement during his first tenure.
The government signed a loan agreement amounting to $900 million with ADB in Feb 2013. As the construction work could not begin as yet, is the clear that the government would miss its completion deadline of Dec 2018.
ADB is providing its assistance to Pakistan in installing a 600MW supercritical coal-fired unit with state of art emission control devices at Jamshoro Thermal Power Station. The project would improve the capacity and working of the power plant operations.
However, the ADB board approved the loan, which became effective in November 2014 and the country is since paying 0.15% interest on total amount as commitment charges. The government acquired the loan for 25 years.
The Jamshoro power project is aimed at increasing the power capacity of the Jamshoro thermal power station. The project is very important for the government to eradicate the menace of load shedding from the country. The total estimated cost of the project is $1.5 billions.
The Islamic Development Bank also provided $220 million for the project and recently it also offered $150 million in addition to its previous commitment for completion the project.
The report stated that even the spade work on the Jamshoro power plant is taking place at a very slow pace. A source in Ministry of Water And Power, when contacted by Daily Times, said that the government is working on the documentation of the project and it would soon start working on the mega project to eliminate the load shedding from the country.