MIRPUR: The Pakistan Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) on Monday signed a contract worth Rs.10.81 billion with Alstom Hydro France for refurbishment and up-gradation of 6 power generating units installed at Mangla Hydel Power Station, it was officially declared.

The contract signing ceremony was held here at WAPDA House on Monday.

WAPDA General Manager (Hydel) Development Engineer Muhammad Arshad Chaudhry and representative of Alstom Hydro France Benoit Dhien signed the agreement on behalf of their organizations.

Mangla Refurbishment Project envisaging additional power of 310 MW will be implemented in various phases, where in the generating units will be refurbished by closing down one tunnel (two generating units) at a time.

First two units will be refurbished by the year 2018, the next two by 2019 and the other two by the year 2020.

Refurbishment of remaining four units will be carried out in the next phase. The approved PC-I cost of the Project is Rs.52.224 billion.

It is worth mentioning that the USAID is providing US$150 million as grant for the purpose, while rest of the amount would be arranged by WAPDA through loans.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2016