ISLAMABAD: The coalition government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), on Monday, claimed that it settled Rs171 billion tariff differential claims of K-Electric (KE) besides reduction of Rs157billion in power circular debt in the last 15 months.
Addressing a news conference here on Monday, Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir claimed that the government had added 5,063-MW electricity to the national grid during its tenure. “Around 1,980 megawatts from Thar Coal, 720 megawatts from Karot Hydropower project, 1,100 megawatts from K-3 nuclear power plant, and 1,263 megawatts from Haveli Bahadur Shah RLNG plant were added in the system,” he explained.
Besides, he said that the circular debt which had stood at a record level of Rs2,467 billion on March 31, 2022, in the previous government was brought down by Rs157 billion to Rs2,310 billion and further increase in circular debt was stopped. He said criminal negligence was meted out to the completion of these power projects by the previous government.
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Responding to a question, the Minister said there was no increase in electricity tariff up to 200 units (protected category) users who are 64 percent of domestic consumers.
Responding to a question regarding the privatisation of Discos, he said the federal government had adopted a policy to provincialise the managements of the Discos, but only the Sindh Government showed its wiliness to buy Sukkur and Hyderabad Discos. Provincial governments of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan did not show interest in taking control of their respective Discos.
He further said that they had also inaugurated a project for the import of 100-megawatt electricity from Iran for Gwadar.
The minister maintained that the present government had also operationalised Thar-Matiari transmission line for the supply of electricity from Thar coal projects. “Work on three more transmission lines is in progress to improve the transmission system,” he added.
Khurram Dastgir said the government is now focusing on renewable energy. He said solar power projects will be offered to friendly countries in the Gulf this week for investment. He was confident that the solar projects will attract massive investment.
The Minister said that it was because of enhancement in electricity generation capacity that the power supply situation during this summer season remained better when compared to the past year.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023