Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar has emphasised the need for an integrated plan for the long term to bring down the electricity cost and overcome the country's immediate and future energy needs. He said this while chairing a meeting on Pakistan Power Sector Investment Prospects at the Finance Ministry here on Sunday.
The meeting was convened to discuss both immediate and long term demand and the generation capacity of the country. It was observed that currently there is a short fall of 4,000MW in generation and demand of the power sector and with the future prospects of increased growth rate the demand will further increase in the next five years. It was ascertained that with the projects in pipeline, the country would need to set up cheaper fuel based energy projects to overcome the shortage of energy.
The Finance Minister said, "We must be realistic and pragmatic at this stage of planning for the future demand and frame our policies for future investment in the light of that demand."
He emphasised on improving energy mix to bring down the generation price which would facilitate the people and industry. He underlined that instead of furnace oil based power projects hydel and coal powered projects should be focussed.
He added that international investors including Chinese companies were interested to finance energy projects and a integrated plan should be made for the long term to overcome our immediate and future needs.
The finance minister further observed that the Ministry of Water and Power must take the recovery side seriously and ensure payment by provinces and reconcile outstanding amount within 60 days, as per decisions made by the CCI in its last meeting. He hoped that the ministry would be able to frame policies with the aim to improve situation on both short and long term basis.
Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif informed that the ministry has during the last one year improved on all aspects of power including generation, transmission, distribution and recovery. He added that with the focus of political leadership on cheaper fuel based power the power mix would improve significantly. He assured the participants that the priority list for future projects would be determined by keeping in view the right energy mix.
Finance Secretary Dr Waqar Masood, Secretaries of Water and Power, Planning and Development and Economic Affairs Division and senior officials of the Finance Ministry also attended the meeting.
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