ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Thursday expressed optimism that state-of-the-art Matiari to Lahore transmission line with four percent line losses was the need of the country to lessen the burden of expensive electricity on the consumers, who have been paying the cost of high line losses of the power sector.
Speaking after inaugurating Matiari to Lahore 600kV transmission line here Thursday, the premier also touched the issue of inflation and expressed the hope that soon prices would come down in the domestic market because there are prospects of swift recovery from coronavirus after the availability of the vaccine.
The prime minister said that although the transmission lines project was started in 2013 but the progress of work was very slow and the progress was accelerated after 2018.
As a result of the work done during the last three years, the project was being inaugurated.
He said that Matiari to Lahore project’s biggest quality is that it is a state-of-the-art transmission line with line losses of around four percent.
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The premier said that so far, the line losses of the power sector are around 17 percent and the nation must know that how much this transmission line would be beneficial for them as one percent line losses cause billions to the country and these are borne by the people in the form of expensive electricity.
“This project would help save power loss and it would recover its cost very quickly,” he said.
The prime minister said that this project is a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which has been accelerated after some slow down and issues due to the coronavirus.
The CPEC project has been put on a fast track, he said, adding that the first part of the CPEC was power generation followed by roads, now it is the transmission line project, which the country needed the most because the dated and depleted country transmission lines makes it difficult for the government to provide electricity to some areas such as the PESCO in the North, where the line losses are very high. Consequently, the premier said that people have been suffering because of load shedding as no investment was made in the transmission lines.
He said that this is the latest and state-of-the-art transmission lines, which would help reduce line losses from 17 percent to four percent. The prime minister said that the industrialisation is also part of the CPEC, which would help create wealth and make the country able to repay the debt. The government would increase wealth creation through industrialisation and agriculture for debt retirement; he said, adding that there were lots of issues due to coronavirus and following disruption in communication and travel ban. Pakistan suffered as it a country recovering from coronavirus, fourth wave struck many countries leading to disruption of supply chain and price of commodities increased in the international market, he added.
The prime minister further stated that Pakistan also suffered as the prices of commodities in the domestic market also went up but he hoped as the world seems to be recovering from coronavirus after availability of vaccination, the prices of commodities would also come down at home and the CPEC projects would be further accelerated.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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