KP govt, Korean company ink MoU for building hydropower project

ISLAMABAD: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday here signed a Memorandum of Understating (MoU) with Korea’s state-owned M/S Korea South East Power Company, KOEN for the construction of 197 megawatts Kalam-Asrit Hydropower Project.

This is run-of-the-river scheme planned to be developed on the Swat River on Build, Own, Operate and Transfer (BOOT) basis as per KP Hydropower policy 2016. It is located on the Swat River, near Kalam village some 405 Km from Islamabad. Its weir is suggested to be located at the village Kalam about one kilometer downstream the confluence of Gabral River and Ushu River. The proposed head race tunnel will run on the right side of Swat valley, parallel to the Swat River; straight down to the village Asrit. The representatives of the KP government and KOEN signed the MoU in the presence of KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak.

Pervez Khattak while talking to the media persons said that the project will be completed with the total estimated cost of $500 million. The KP government will get revenue of Rs35 million annually without doing any investment, he added.

Khattak said for the first time KP government has signed agreements for around 2200MWs hydropower projects in the provinces. Since the hydropower projects usually take six years, therefore the fruit will be ripped during the next government. He said that federal government is not sincere in its claim of controlling the electricity theft/losses it is just rhetoric as no practical step was taken so far. Besides, he said that the Ex-Wapda distribution companies’ officials are involved in electricity theft and unless crackdown against these officials is made the electricity theft cannot be controlled. He said that line losses can also be not controlled, as it needs up gradation of power transmission and distribution system.

He said that despite the government claims of enough generation, load shedding cannot be controlled in the provinces of KP, Sindh and Balochistan as the transmission and distribution system in these provinces is outdated and no investment was made by the federal government. He said that KP is generating 3500MW electricity while the province’s demand is 2400MW, however, due to the system constraints the province cannot utilize more than 1800 MW of electricity.

Regarding the claim of constructing 350 dams in KP during PTI five years tenure, Khattak clarified that it was not big dams but small hydropower projects. He said that 50 small hydro projects have been completed while work on 50 other projects is underway.