Another scandal

This refers to the article, ‘The Sahiwal power plant’ (March 11) by Abbas Hasan. The writer has excellently highlighted the dark sides of the project. The capital cost of the project is $1.06 million per MW, whereas it is $0.78 million per MW for the 1,320MW Coal Power Plant at Kawai (India), $0.58 million per MW in China and $.099 million per MW in South Korea. Another important parameter – levelised (price) tariff – can also help compare the efficiency of coal plants. The levelised tariff for the Sahiwal power plant is 8.5 cents per kWh while India’s Kawai power plant has a levelised tariff of 3.76 cents and for a power plant in Bangladesh (Barapukuria) it is 3.85 cents. This shows that tariff in our country is more than double when compared to other countries in the region.

Moreover, the writer has mentioned that “a 1,200MW power station will burn 600 tonnes of coal per hour, approximately 14,000 tonnes per day.” In fact this figure is more than 18,000 tonnes per day, ie, 6.6 million tonnes per year. To transport this huge quantity of coal from Karachi to the plant site, 13 trains with a capacity of 500 tonnes each would be running daily, covering a distance of about 1,100kms. Pakistan Railways will require huge investment to undertake the transportation of coal of this magnitude. The existing coal handling capacity of the Karachi Port is five million tonnes per annum which will also have to be upgraded to meet the coal requirement of the plant. In view of these issues, the project may turn out to be another mega scandal.

Sultan Ali Khan

Karachi