Centre rebuts KP government=s blame

Islamabad: The federal government on Thursday rebutted the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government=s allegations that the Centre was creating hurdles in its energy projects, saying that although the province had initiated small projects, but so far, it has neither officially conveyed nor asked for NOCs for these projects.

ASome of the provincial projects are in far flung areas, where no transmission line exists and laying the transmission lines for them is not economically viable, as it costs more than what is the cost of these projects,@ Minister for Power Division Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said.

The minister said that for any energy project to be connected to the national grid and its energy sale-purchase, a proper plan is required which is missing in these projects. He said that in the past, the KP government claimed that it will set up small power generation schemes in far flung areas to cater the energy demand of the particular areas. AWhy they are now insisting on connecting them to grid, despite the fact that it is not a viable option. Despite their claims of building projects of thousands of megawatts in the past, why the KP government did stop at only 75MW,@ the minister asked.

Leghari said that whether the provincial government should not be blamed for ill planning, instead of blaming the federal government that the province had built projects, but so far failed in constructing supply infrastructure to the local energy consumers. It is worth mentioning that the CCI had already approved policy that the provincial governments can develop their own power distribution system.

He said the federal government has been supporting building hydel power projects in KP that include under construction 870MW Suki Kinari hydropower project, 1,410MW Tarbela-4 to be completed soon. Besides, he said, there are other small projects generating electricity including Dubair Khwar and Allai Khwar. Another project, Dasu Hydropower Project of 4000MWs capacity is being constructed in KP.

AWe had discussed making a national electricity policy with the all provinces in 2013 and we had also taken approval from the Council of Common Interests (CCI). Currently, we are also working on a new national electricity policy and national electricity plan. Unfortunately, the people who are blaming us are not taking these meeting serious and sending their junior officials for attending the meetings,@ he said.

The minister said the energy projects that are been constructed by the KP government are all small and none of them is above 40MW of capacity. He said instead of sending their generation to the national grid, it should be provided to the local Disco.

He said Pehur Hydropower Project of 18MW that has been built in 2010 is supplying electricity to Pesco. He mentioned that another 17MW Ranolya Hydel Power Project was recently completed and the NTDC transmission line has reached there.