KARACHI: Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh on Tuesday said that ending the country’s energy crisis would be the first priority of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) after coming to power.

“Economic development is not possible until the end of the energy crisis,” he said. He held the former government of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf responsible for the economic and energy crisis in the country.

While addressing a “Solar Clean Energy Conference” at a local hotel, he said that the PPP-led Sindh Government was playing its full role to end the energy crisis.

He said that the previous PTI-led federal government neglected the energy projects of Sindh. “We started energy projects with public private partnership and foreign financial institutions,” he said added that the provincial government had solarised 233 basic health units and 37 major hospitals in the province.

The energy minister said as many as 40 large government buildings including the Sindh Assembly and Central Prison Karachi were being solarised.

Imtiaz Sheikh said that Sindh was the first province where hybrid policy had been made. “Sindh government has signed MoUs on business to business basis for electricity generation,” he added.

The energy minister said that the Sindh was also the first province in which 200,000 buildings were being solarised.

He said that Sindh had worked the most on alternative energy and renewable energy in the country. “Sindh is not only a province rich in minerals, but there are vast opportunities for generating electricity from which a rich income can be obtained,” he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023