The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) will spend Rs 34.8 billion on the improvement of power transmission system, erection of transmission lines and construction of new grid stations to meet the ever increasing demand for electricity in the country.
Wapda Member (Power) Chaudhry Muhammad Anwar Khalid told APP here on Sunday that the Authority had already spent Rs 14.4 billion on 12 projects designed for augmentation system during the last one and half years across the kV transmission lines of 109-km and 255-km length.
He said seven grid stations of 220 kV each and one grid station of 500 kV capacity were constructed in the country.
He said these projects helped a lot in strengthening the power transmission and distribution system, adding another eight new grid stations of 132 kV capacity each were also added on the system and 27 grid stations were extended with the installation of heavy duty transformer while augmentation work was carried out in another 27 grid stations in different parts of the country.
Khalid said that during the period under review, 132 kV line of 296 length were also erected at a cost of Rs 1 billion, adding that Rs 34.8 billion will be spent on 15 identical projects in the next two years and sites for this purpose had already been identified.
He hoped that with the addition of new grid stations and erection of high voltage transmission line, overall power transmission system of Wapda will further improve.
Referring to a news item regarding the output of Wapda appeared in a section of the press recently, he said Authority's system, the largest in the country is fully capable enough of meeting power demands in future provided all resources were made available timely.