Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that load shedding will be a reference of history as the government is exploring new power generation projects on micro as well as mega levels to ensure sustained and uninterrupted electricity for the future generations.
While chairing a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on energy to review all ongoing power projects on Tuesday, the prime minister stated that previous governments have been unable to fulfil the duty of power generation.
He said that by the end of tenure of the present government, reliance on costly fuel for power generation will be reduced a great deal. The prime minister said that the country was gripped by energy crisis when the present government came into power; today the situation has changed significantly.
There is now zero load shedding for the industrial sector and load shedding in urban and rural areas has substantially and gradually been reduced, the prime minister said. The meeting reviewed timelines of the clean energy projects as well as planned coal fired power plants, hydel and LNG power plants thereby noting that these projects will add significant electricity to the national grid during the year 2017 and before March 2018.
He said that the focus of the present government right from the first day is to resolve energy crisis in the country and adding sufficient energy to the national grid.
"Besides, we are determined to provide cheaper electricity to our people," the prime minister added. The CCOE deliberated on the future power generation projects to cater for the energy requirements of the country in wake of economic activities, infrastructure and industrial development.
The meeting also discussed the status of work on establishment of new transmission lines in detail in addition to streamlining the power distribution system. The meeting was informed that bottlenecks are being removed in the distribution system to ensure uninterrupted supply of electricity to the consumers.
Secretary Water and Power briefed the meeting that circular debt has been caped, recoveries are satisfactory and line losses have been minimised. The meeting was informed that transmission and distribution lines projects are on track. The prime minister said that holistic reforms in the energy sector and efforts for generating additional power through diversifying the energy mix will help in meeting the future energy requirements of the country, expressed the prime minister.
These endeavours of the present government have earned significant recognition and acknowledgement on a wide scale the world over, the Prime Minister further stated. He added that the present government has unprecedented edge to execute power generation projects having capacity more than the power generation initiatives taken during the last 20 years.