Minister of State for Water & Power Abid Sher Ali has said the Nandipur Power Project was generating 100 megawatt electricity at present and the propaganda about closure of its operations was baseless and unfounded. He was addressing a press conference at the WAPDA House on Saturday. "The hydel generation has reached to 4369 megawatt now, which earlier was 2200 megawatt. Therefore, the thermal generation was not being utilised in full capacity to avoid expensive generation," he added.
While announcing a media visit to the site of Nandipur soon, he said the targeted power generation of 525 megawatt would be produced while the present generation could reach to 180 megawatt. He said the actual cost of the Nandipur was Rs 50 billion and the second audit by Ferguson would be made public in next two weeks. He claimed that there was a not a single power sector scandal of the government but a certain section of media was airing false and baseless information for the public.
"We would welcome facts-based objections but media should avoid from false propaganda," he added. He said the government has exempted the entire industry feeders, including the cottage industry, from loadshedding. He said the urban areas loadshedding was six hours a day while the rural areas loadshedding was restricted to eight hours a day, except the areas where rampant power theft incidents were taking place.
He said the government has achieved a maximum generation of 16900 megawatt during 2015, which would be increased further in 2016. He said grid stations worth Rs 30 billion have also been completed this year and more would be completed ahead. Regarding outsourcing the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park, he said there is no harm in it but the final decision would be taken by the Punjab government.
He said the circular debt in the country was around Rs 250 billion due to the burdens of subsidies and billions of rupees of power theft. "The government had secured Rs 220 billion through merit audit," he added. He said the influential landlords had defaulted electricity bills for Rs 4 billion and his ministry has disconnected supplies to their tube wells across the country. "We have recovered underground transformers while the actual default on tube wells was Rs 2 billion there. The KESCO receivables on tube wells are to the tune of Rs 130 billion," he said and added that the Pakistan Rangers was also helping out the ministry in this regard.
He also counted the new power projects to meet the energy demand of the country by next two years. He said Prime Minister would hold groundbreaking of Dasu Dam project next year. Regarding to the phenomenon of over-billing, he said minor complaints were in the notice of the government and the Prime Minister has ordered for holding open kutchehris in this regard.