Lakhra power plant not yet leased out despite President''s orders

The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has defied President General Pervez Musharraf''s orders by not finalising terms and conditions to lease out Lakhra Power Plant in Sindh to Associated Group, a Lahore-based private sector company.
Sources said the President endorsed leasing out of Wapda''s Lakhra plant to Associated Group during a meeting held on March 22. The authority chairman was also among the participants.
The minutes of the meeting, made available to Business Recorder, showed that Musharraf gave a clear direction to Wapda for preparing terms and conditions for leasing out the plant to the private company within a week. The sole objective of the move was to get injected more money into it and raise its production up to 150 megawatts.
Despite lapse of almost five months, the orders were yet to be implemented. The delay in implementation of the decision in this case shows how seriously the government departments take the orders of high-ups.
Timely transfer of Lakhara Power Plant could result in providing some additional electricity to Wapda, which is at the moment facing acute shortage. The sources said Wapda authorities instead of implementing the President''s directive were finding excuses to delay the transfer.
The proposal to lease out the plant to Associated Group has already been approved by the federal cabinet. As per original plan, the Group will get Lakhra Power Plant from Wapda on lease and invest $120 million in it in two phases to increase the production to 150-MW.
In the first phase, the company will invest $20 million on the basic infrastructure and capacity enhancement and this would be followed by another $100 million in one year to take its production to 150-MW.
Lakhra is a coal-fired power plant owned by Wapda and its existing production capacity is only 20-MW. After having failed to run the plant to an optimal production level, Wapda is now going for even a much bigger coal-fired power plant for Sindh. It recently floated international tender for setting up 1000-MW coal fired power plant close at Qasim Port.