Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has directed early completion of hydro projects and to hand over the completed micro hydel projects to the respective communities. He was presiding over the 5th stock take meeting at Chief Minister Secretariat Peshawar. Provincial Minister for Energy Muhammad Atif Khan, administrative secretaries, Head of Strategic Support Unit and relevant officials of the PEDO and KP Oil and Gas Company attended.
The meeting was briefed about the priority areas in energy sector, the status of implementation of the 6th stock take decisions and the under-implementation projects in energy and other public sector institutions. The meeting was informed about the MoUs with four companies for seven hydro power projects concluded in the road-show in Beijing that was expected to bring Rs 7 billion investment. Three companies had already visited the allocated sites of the projects, he added.
The Chief Minister directed to formally convert the MoUs into agreements and these projects should be ready in all respect. He would take these projects to JCC in its next meetings in order to formalize the agreements, he added. The meeting was further informed that 214 micro hydel projects had been completed out of the 356 mini hydro projects and 91 were near to completion.
The documentation of the completed projects for handing over to the communities was ready requiring formal approval of the Chief Minister. He in principle agreed to the formal handing over of these projects and directed that the handing over process should be immediately started and completed.
The meeting was told that agreement had been made for the first phase of the production of electricity from gas of 100 MMCF and the revised plan had been communicated to the strategy support unit.
A no objection certificate (NOC) for four run of the canal projects have been obtained and mini hydro projects with the capacity to produce 644 megawatt of electricity had been sent to CDWP for approval and the provision of electricity to 100 villages of central and southern districts and 100 villages of Chitral affected by the recent flood was in advance stage.
The Chief Minister directed for accelerated process for the provision of electricity to these villages. He also asked for details about different projects being executed with the financial cooperation of Asian Development Bank. He also directed to prepare other need-driven schemes in energy sector. He was also informed about the issues related to the income tax and sales tax. The income tax case was in the court which was yet to the fixed for hearing while the sales tax case was in the tribunal.
He hoped the government would win these cases. The meeting was further informed about the oil and gas projects of the KP oil and gas companies indicating seven new concession blocks of petroleum adding that work on Lakki Block would be taken in hand soon which would require formal approval of the relevant forum. Work on 27 blocks out of the total 28 had been started.