Wapda to set up two thermal power plants

Two Thermal Power plants of 900 MW (450 MW each) at an estimated cost of Rs 35 billion would be constructed by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to meet the future demand of power in the country.
These plants would be installed in the places to be identified later by the Wapda and would be completed up to 2007 to fulfill the required future demand. Wapda has been asked to submit the details in this regard within three weeks time for further procedure.
This decision was taken in a high level meeting held here on Thursday with the Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi in the chair.
Ministry of Water and Power Federal Secretary, Advisor Ministry of Water and Power, Chairman Wapda, Senior Officers of Ministry, Wapda, Ministry of Petroleum and Planning Division attended the meeting.
The meeting reviewed in details the actual supply and demand position of 2005-06 to 2009-10, load forecast scenario, and short and medium term plan to meet the required demand.
It was also decided that more than 300 MW additional power to be supplied to Karachi Electric Supply Corporation by 2007 to meet the demand of Karachi.
In a detailed presentation, Chairman Wapda informed the meeting about current generation capacity of three sources - Wapda Hydel, Gencos Thermal and IPPs. The meeting was informed that on the basis of load demand projected at load growth rates, there would be additional demand of 900 MW power by end of June 2007. It was informed that the proposed locations for these two power stations were Nandipur, Faisalabad and Lahore.
The Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Ali Jatoi stressed the need for devising a rationale strategy to cope with the situation and further emphasised to remove all bottlenecks to meet the future demand as well as to attract more foreign investment in power sector.
He was of the view that growth rate was going high in power sector which was to be tackled intelligently through adopting measures of installing more power plants for producing sufficient energy to avoid load shedding in future. He added present government fully committed to provide electricity to the people at cheap rates.