Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani on Monday appreciated the ministries of water and power, finance, petroleum, Wapda and others for doing excellent work during this season as the people of the country and the industrial sector had to face minimum possible load-shedding.
The Prime Minister expressed these views during a briefing by the Ministry of Water and Power on Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project here at the Prime Minister House. It was attended by Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar, Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, the secretary finance, the secretary Ministry of Water and Power, the secretary Economic Affairs Division and other senior officials of the relevant ministries.
The prime minister said the timely action of the federal ministries had frustrated the designs of the political opponents, who were planning to cash on the possible unrest due to shortage of energy in the season. The prime minister directed the ministries to take measures well in advance to minimise the impact of the canal closures by bridging the possible power gap by increasing the thermal power generation.
The prime minister said this government had added 3500 MW in the national grid during its tenure, so far, which was an impressive performance by any stretch of imagination. He said that the democratic government had also provided electricity to thousands of villages in the country during the period.
In view of the very good response from the private sector in the power sector, as highlighted by Chairman Wapda, the prime minister approved the one-window operation in order to facilitate the potential investors, who were interested to invest in Pakistan due to bright prospects in this sector.
The prime minister also urged upon the Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Water and Power to project the government's successful efforts in undertaking the short, medium and long term projects to overcome the energy shortage in the country. The credit should be earned by showcasing the performance in this sector, he added.
The prime minister said the credit goes to the democratic government for launching work on the Diamer Bhasha Dam, which was approved by the Council of Common Interests through a consensus decision, unlike the Kalabagh Dam, which fell victim to political controversies. The prime minister expressed the resolve of his government to take up decisions in the successive cabinet meetings about the public sector enterprises, which had been making big hole in the pocket of public exchequer for the last many years.
The matter of circular debt will be taken up front so that people are not confronted with the unscheduled loadshedding. Prime Minister Gilani said important and immediate decisions would be taken regarding the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to overcome the shortage of electricity in the country because the entire import of LNG would be used for producing 2200 MW electricity.
Earlier, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Kohala Hydropower Project said in his briefing that the work on the project was progressing well and about 28 per cent work of the project had already been completed.
The meeting also approved the reconstitution of the Board of Directors by inducting relevant stakeholders. The CEO of Neelum Jhelum Hydropower Project said that after winning the arbitration case, the work had been resumed in full swing and hopefully would be completed in 2016 with generation capacity of 960 MW.