The Ministry of Water and Power has asked Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) to accelerate efforts for the installation of new projects aimed at meeting expected power shortfall in the coming years.
According to survey completed by PPIB, the country will have to face power shortage of about 5530MW by 2010 if new projects having required power capacity were not made functioning.
According to the sources of the ministry, the ministry has issued directive to PPIB for new projects especially those, which have been approved by the board.
When a senior official of the board was contacted, he said that the board has already issued evaluation reports on pre-qualification of the sponsors of four power projects with cumulative capacity of 770MW having estimated cost of about 838 million dollars.
He said that in accordance with the provisions of the Power Policy-2002, a committee having representation from all stakeholders including Wapda, KESC, planning division, all the four provinces and AJK, initially scrutinise and approved the projects.
Projects approved by the committee are Jarwar project of 123MW, Western electric power project of 150 MW, Balloki power project of 400MW and Kotli hydropower project of 97MW.
The policy envisaged various objectives inter alia, to provide sufficient capacity for power generation at minimum cost and to avoid shortfalls while encouraging exploitation of indigenous resources.
The pre-qualification reports of these sponsors were prepared by PPIB as per international standards. Further as per provisions of the policy, PPIB has given the approval for issuance of Letters of Interest to the sponsors of the above-mentioned projects, he told APP.
The board is also in process of evaluating pre-qualification details of five more power companies including 100-200MW gas based power plant (Manzalai) at Lachi, district Karak, NWFP by Inter-construct (Pvt) Limited, 150MW Fauji power plant at Korangi, Karachi by Fauji Foundation, 200MW coal based thermal power plant at Jherruk-Sonda, Sindh by Dadabhoy Cement Industries Limited, 740MW Munda multipurpose hydro power project and 100MW Ferozwala power project.
In addition to these projects being handled by PPIB, two hydel projects namely New Bong hydel power project of 79MW and Rajdhani power project 132MW are in advanced stage and it is expected that practical work would soon start for these projects, he said.
It may be mentioned here that the board also offered incentives to the investors interested in projects based on solar, wind, bio-mass etc as well as projects based on coal with integrated coal mining and fuel facility in Power Policy-2002.
It may be recalled here that the policy is being administered by Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB), an organisation working under the auspices of ministry of water and power, to provide one-window facilities to private sector investors.