Govt facilitating investors in harnessing Sindh’s wind, solar power potential, PA told

The Sindh Assembly was informed on Wednesday that the provincial government had been trying its best to facilitate the private sector to invest to harness to the maximum possible extent the wind and solar energy potential of the province to ensure the availability of electricity at cheap rates to the residents of Karachi and other parts of Sindh.

This was stated by Sindh Energy and Planning & Development Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah while responding to queries from legislators during the question hour of the session. He said that four solar parks would be built in Karachi under the public-private partnership initiative.

He said that solar-wind hybrid renewable energy plants would be built in the wind corridor of Sindh whose electricity would be supplied to the industrial consumers in urban areas through wheeling arrangements with active involvement of the private sector.

Shah told the legislators that power generation plants based on Thar coal were being established in Sindh. He said that Thar had massive energy resources for the entire country. He said that so far only China was willing to invest to harness the Thar coal potential for power generation for the entire country, whereas Western countries were not available for this investment.

He said the chief minister and a few provincial ministers, including himself, would accompany President Asif Ali Zardari on his upcoming visit to China, where several bilateral agreements would be signed.

He said those accompanying President Zardari on the upcoming visit to China would bear their own travel expenses.

Meanwhile, the energy minister told the house that the provincial government had taken cognisance of the troubled law and order situation in District Sanghar. He said the inspector-general of police and the home minister were aware of the law and order situation in Sanghar.

He said the Sindh government of the Pakistan Peoples Party stood with the oppressed people in the district. A lawmaker from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement- Pakistan, Sabir Qaimkhani, while speaking on a point of order, said that three persons had lost their lives while 23 other people were injured in a recent firing incident in Sanghar.

He said the aggrieved residents of Sanghar had been protesting demanding the lodging of a criminal case against the culprits. He said the concerned people had been staging a protest along with the dead bodies. He assured the house that justice would be served in this case.