LAHORE: Federal Minister for Energy Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan on Sunday said that power projects commissioned in recent past had been initiated by previous Nawaz Sharif led PML-N government, which had started work on new power generation projects with accumulative capacity of 11,600 mega watts.
Addressing a press conference at GEPCO (Gujranwala Electric Power Company) office, he added that 720-megawatt Karot power plant has started generation since June 29.
He said that water inflow in Tarbela Dam has increased significantly over the last three days, which resulted in an additional 600 MW of electricity. In next few days, the Tarbela Power Plant will be operating on capacity of 3400MW.
To a question about load-shedding on Eid days, he said that there will be a considerable relief in power supply to domestic consumers owing to closure of industry during Eid-ul-Azha days.
During the PTI tenure, he mentioned, power projects of 5800MW could not generate electricity due to criminal negligence of the previous government which did not purchase fuel for these power plants, which led to power crisis and the people had to face long-hours power outages.
To a query, the minister said that huge quantum of electricity could be generated through Thar coal deposits, asserting that 1214 MW Thar Coal Power Plant will be the biggest coal power plant of Pakistan. The new power generation projects being initiating by the present government will operate on domestic fuel instead of imported fuel.
Khurram Dastgir said that a comprehensive strategy is being devised to switch the domestic power consumers over to solar energy, while all public buildings and infrastructures are being switched over to solar energy in phased manner and a number of steps are being taken in this regard.
Responding to a question, he said that there is less load-shedding on feeders where bill recovery rate is high, while feeders with high power theft ratio are put on load-shedding for long time. The consumers using up to 300 units per months are being charged the bill with low rates.
