Prime Minister Imran Khan has said that the Matiari to Lahore transmission line will help reduce line losses, and vowed to accelerate work on projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

Addressing the inaugural ceremony on Thursday, the PM said that the project was necessary as Pakistan's transmission lines were old due to which people were suffering from load shedding.

He added Covid-19 stalled communications, which led to travel bans and affected supply chains. The PM further said that he was happy that projects under CPEC have accelerated despite the coronavirus pandemic.

He added that the scope of CPEC is now being expanded from power generation and road infrastructure projects to cooperation in the areas of industries and agriculture.

The 886-kilometre long Matiari to Lahore transmission line has the capacity to carry 4,000 megawatts of electricity and 1973 towers have been constructed for this purpose.

The testing of the project has been completed and it is ready for regular electricity transmission.

Matiari-Lahore Transmission Line project achieves its COD

The project will evacuate power from the new generating units located in the south, including Thar coal projects.

The HVDC technology is a maiden addition to the national grid though it has been widely used for long time around the world. It fulfils the need for long-distance high-power transmission from generating stations in far-flung areas to the densely located load centres.

Khan said the Matiari-Lahore transmission line was officially commenced in 2013, but work on it had not been started until 2018.

"I congratulate all those involved in the speedy completion of this project over a course of three years," he added.

"One per cent line loss costs us billions of rupees ... and it is one of the reasons we are unable to meet electricity demand and end the problem of load shedding," he said.