Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has said that work on 356 small hydel power stations is continue in the province and out of them 100 have been completed. He said that on completion those projects would include 2,500 megawatt electricity in the national grid. Presiding over ninth meeting of the Hydel Development Fund Board (HDFD), here in Civil Secretariat, he further said the provincial government had also planned the construction of 1,000 micro-hydel power stations.
Provincial Minister for Energy and Power, Mohammad Atif Khan, KP Minister for Finance, Muzaffar Said, administrative secretaries and other concerned authorities were also present on the occasion. On this occasion the meeting was given detailed briefing on the present status of the Energy & Power Development Fund (Amendment) Ordinance, 2016, progress on the implementation of decisions taken in previous meeting, financial affairs of Provincial Energy Development Organisation (Pedo) an other related aspects.
The chief minister also directed the acceleration of the pace of steps for handing over of the already completed hydel projects to committee concerned. He said that industrialists situated adjacent to such projects could be made effective by them. The interest of the investors in the acquiring of plots in Malakand Industrial Estate was signals towards the bright future of industrialisation in the area. He said in district industrial zones gas would be utilised for power generation to use it there.
The chief minister said power projects of 225MW would be installed inside the territorial jurisdiction of industrial zones to guarantee interrupt free power supply. He directed for the completion of all legal requirements to make that plan of government successful. The chief minister said negative attitude and vested interested oriented approach of the previous governments had frightened the private sector, which resulted in inflicted huge loss on the province. He clarified that previous government had started hydel power projects of the capacity of only 53 megawatt, but they were still making tall claims in that regard.