LAHORE: Chairman Wapda Eng Lt Gen Sajjad Ghani (r) visited Mangla Dam Organization and its various components including main dam, Jari dam site and powerhouse.
During the visit, the Wapda Chairman was briefed about the matters relating to Mangla Dam and Mangla Raised Project and powerhouse.
Member Power Wapda Jamil Akhtar, GM MDO, GM MRP, consultants and contractors were present on the occasion.
The Wapda is implementing Mangla Refurbishment Project with an approved PC-I cost of Rs52.224 billion. The Project is being carried out in various phase, wherein eight generating units are to be refurbished. Refurbishment of the first two units has been completed in 2022, while refurbishment of remaining six generating units is likely to be accomplished by year 2027-28 in a phased manner.
Mangla Refurbishment Project, on its completion, will enhance generation capacity of the existing Mangla Hydel Power Station from 1000MW to 1310MW, means registering an increase of 310MW. Resultantly, the average annual generation of Mangla Hydel Power Station will also increase from 5 billion units to 6.6 billion units.
USAID is providing US$150 million as grant and AFD France is providing Euro 90 million as loan for Mangla Refurbishment Project, while rest of the amount is being arranged by Wapda through loans and from its own resources.
Mangla Dam has been playing a pivotal role towards socio-economic development of the country, during the last five decades by releasing the stored water for irrigation, mitigation of flood and adding low cost electricity to National Grid. Mangla Dam one of the largest earth & rock filled dam of the world, provided 262.67 billion units of low cost electricity to the National Grid, since its commissioning. Manlga Dam was constructed in 1967 with the live storage capacity of 5.88 MAF, which reduced to 4.6 MAF till 2004 gradually, due to natural phenomenon of sedimentation. Subsequently, Mangla Dam Raising Project was initiated in 2004 with a view to optimize the water potential of River Jhelum. With substantially completion of the project in 2009, the water storage capacity of Mangla Reservoir was increased.
The consultants of Mangla Dam in their design of the project way back in 1960 had envisaged the life of the Mangla reservoir from 100 to 115 years. However effective watershed techniques adopted by Wapda and completion of Mangla Dam Raising Project have increased the life of Mangla reservoir to 281 years.
During the visit, the rehabilitation of Jari Dam intake gate, tunnel outlet works, and revision of reservoir’s minimum operating level from 1050 ft to 1058 ft, intake trash screening problem and de-silting of five small Hydel Power Stations and Unit 1 & 2 under refurbishment were also discussed.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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