Move to give statutory status to PPIB

The government has decided to give statutory status to the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) through an Act of Parliament, in a bid to improve its performance. The decision was taken at the 79th meeting of PPIB, with Federal Minister for Water and Power Pervez Ashraf in the chair here on Sunday.
According to a handout issued here, the meeting decided that to improve the performance of PPIB, it should be given a statutory status and, after due inputs of concerned ministries, a summary would be moved for an act of parliament to provide such status to PPIB.
Besides, the Minister said, 2,851 mw electricity would be added into the system by the next year with the help of the private sector. He said that by subsequent additions into the system each year it would accumulate around 9,500 mw electricity in the next five years.
He said the government was committed to achieve its targets for inducting more power capacity into the national grid to get rid of load shedding by next year. He appreciated that the 165 MW Attock Gen Power Project has already synchronised, which would shortly be inaugurated by the President. The power plant is due to start supplying power to the system very soon.
PPIB Managing Director told the Board that the rental power projects, being processed by PPIB, were showing good progress, and their contracts had been concluded, while PPIB will solicit additional rental power projects on fast track basis through press in the coming week.
He said that while the projects were being processed on fast track basis, at the same time an exercise was being carried out to establish realistic power demand-supply scenario for all future projects.
"For future projects, an optimum fuel mix is being considered, and imported coal projects may also be further encouraged in future due to the declining cost of coal in the international markets, in addition to the efforts of developing country's domestic coal and hydel resources," he said. The minister lauded the efforts of PPIB team in attracting the investor community for establishing power plants in the country and processing the projects proposals.
It was decided that to improve the performance of PPIB, it should be given statutory status and, after due inputs of concerned ministries, a summary would be moved for an act of parliament to provide such status to PPIB.
The meeting was attended by Secretary Water and Power Ismail Qureshi, Secretary Planning Commission, Additional Secretary Petroleum and Natural Resources G.A Sabri, and Managing Director PPIB Fayyaz Elahi, besides other senior government officials, and private members of the Board.