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After international competitive bidding, construction work on Diamer-Bhasha Dam Project will start in October this year. The project, on its completion, will store 6.4 million-acre feet (MAF) of water for agriculture besides generating 4500-MW of low-cost hydel electricity.
This was stated by Wapda Chairman Shakil Durrani while talking to a delegation of the Armed Forces War Course, National Defence University, Islamabad, at Wapda House on Saturday. The visiting delegation was headed by the Chief Instructor Major General Tahir Habib.
Speaking on the occasion, the Chairman said that Wapda is focused on the optimal utilisation of water and hydropower resources in the country. To a question, he responded that the international financial institutions have shown keen interest in financing the various Wapda projects because of their high economic internal rate of returns (EIRR).
Earlier, Wapda Member (Water) Syed Raghib Abbas Shah, briefing the delegation on water sector, said that Wapda is constructing 15 mega projects in water and hydropower sectors. Mangla Dam Raising Project has been substantially completed, while Satpara Dam in Skardu and Gomal Zam Dam in South Waziristan Agency are expected to be completed in July and October this year respectively.
The delegation was further briefed that Jinnah Hydropower and three Khwar projects with accumulative generation capacity of 419-MW would start contributing to the National Grid from this year onwards. The delegation was informed that in addition to executing mega projects in water and hydropower sectors, Wapda has been tasked to build 32 small and medium dams in all the four provinces and Fata.
Of them, 12 dams will be constructed in the first phase of three years to provide gross storage capacity of about 2.5 MAF for irrigating more than 6,35,500 acres of land through high efficiency micro irrigation system.
Pepco Managing Director Eng Tahir Basharat Cheema, during his briefing on power sector, told the delegation that various reforms have been introduced in the power sector of the country to make it more efficient and customer-friendly. He said that the government is taking a number of short, medium and long-term measures to bridge the gap between demand and supply of the electricity.
Dilating upon the supply and demand side measures, he informed that more than 8,000-MW electricity would be added to the National Grid by December 2012. Wapda Member (Power) Fazal Ahmad Khan, Member (Finance) Chaudhary Abdul Qadeer, MD (Administration) Naveed Akram Cheema, Secretary WAPDA Imtiaz Tajwar and other officers concerned were also present on the occasion.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2010

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