PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari will inaugurate the country's first-ever indigenous coal power plant of 660 megawatt capacity in Tharparkar on Wednesday (today). Formal commercial operation of the power plant will commence by June this year, project manager Faisal Shafiq expressed hope.
Talking to visiting journalists in Islamkot, he said, the plant consists of two generation units and capacity of each of them is 330 megawatt. One of the power generation units had already been synchronised with the national grid, while synchronisation of the second unit would commence from Wednesday, he said.
Faisal Shafiq said plant is part of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project as China actively extended financial, technical and manpower support to complete the project. He said formal commercial operation of the power plant would commence by June this year as afterwards full capacity of the power plant would be supplied to the national grid.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, his cabinet colleagues, senior government officials and diplomats of various countries, including that of China will attend inaugural ceremony in Islamkot area where both the coalmine of Thar block-II and related first-ever power plant is situated.
The federal government is likely to be represented on the occasion by Federal Minister for Power Umer Ayub Khan. The official further said it took around 10 years since the Thar coal energy project had been conceived and Sindh government entered into partnership with Engro under the Public- Private Partnership regime.
"All the environmental concerns regarding first major coal-based power project of the country have been allayed well," he said, adding that the energy project had been built well in accordance with the standards set by the World Bank and International Finance Corporation.
The project would consume 12,000 tonnes per day coal extracted from the coalmine of Thar block-II once it would achieve its full capacity. He said around 4,000-strong labour force had been used for construction of power plant. Among them 2,500 labourers were indigenous belonging to nearby Thar area.
He said up to 70 engineers working for Thar coal power project also hailed from Thar. He said construction of the plant had been completed in almost 36 months. Connectivity of the plant with transmission line to connect it with the national grid had been completed as tests and trials to check it had also been done.
Sindh government, Engro and other partners of Thar coal power project had been working on an extensive plan to properly train local youth imparting them required technical expertise so that they could work for the project with proper qualification. He said no major untoward incident or eventuality occurred during construction of the first-ever major coal-based power project of the country.
Earlier, Project Manager of Thar Block-II coalmine Naeem Pasha told media persons that the mining operation in Thar block-II had formally commenced in 2016 as the open-pit mining operation had gone up to 160 metres deep beneath the ground. He said coal extraction from the mine of block-II had achieved the level that it could meet fuel needs of 660 megawatt power plant.
He said coal extracted from block-II would be consumed in the later years would be used to generate to 5,000 megawatt by the year 2024. He said the coalmine's capacity had reached 3.8 tonnes per annum. It will rise to 27 tonnes per annum in next five years, he predicted.
Pasha said it was just one per cent of the massive Thar coal reserves of 175 billion tonnes as it was enough to generate electricity for next 50 years. Naseer Memon, General Manager CSR of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company said Thar coal power project had given direct and indirect employment to up to 6,000 Thari people after imparting them training.
Comments
Comments are closed.