Thar coal project to start generating 1,320MW by Dec, says minister

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir Wednesday said the Thar Coal Power project would start generating 1,320 MW of electricity by December this year, whereas, the total potential to generate power in Thar is 3,640 MW.

“Another 1,320 MW Thar Coal Power project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would start generation before the next summer which would help double electricity generation to 2,640 MW.

As many as 660 MW of electricity had already been supplied to the National Grid since 2019 through local Thar Coal,” the minister said while responding to a calling attention notice in the National Assembly regarding inflated electricity bills.

Answering a supplementary question, the minister said that the government has provided a relief of Rs65 billion to the electricity consumers by waiving off Fuel Adjustment Charges in the last two months (August and September).

He said that the government has given relief of Rs37 billion in August, Rs15 billion in September, and Rs13.3 billion to the flood-affected people. He said that the government gave relief to consumers of flood-affected areas of Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

He said that fuel adjustment charges have been reduced from 9.89 rupees to only 22 paisas per unit in the month of August.

He added the government has exempted the agriculture tube wells. According to government policy, the minister said that the government has decided not to use imported fuel for electricity generation to reduce the production cost. He said the government will now focus on producing electricity through indigenous resources such as solar, wind, hydel, nuclear, and Thar coal.

After discussing the calling attention notice, National Assembly Speaker Raja Pervaiz Ashraf referred it to the concerned standing committee for further discussion.

Earlier, responding to a question during question hour in the House, Parliamentary Secretary on National Food Security and Research Ahmad Raza Maneka said that the government has allocated a huge fund to provide subsidised seeds to farmers in flood-affected areas of the country.

The members of the House, Ghous Bux Mahar, Moeen Wattoo, Nawab Sher, and others raised many questions about the research on seeds and latest technology for the agriculture sector. They also raised the question that the government should announce wheat price particularly in Punjab before cultivation of wheat crop. The parliamentary secretary said the Pakistan Agricultural Research Council is imparting scientific knowledge to farmers to enhance agriculture production.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022