PM directs NTDC, Pesco to supply power to KP on wheeling charges

PESHAWAR: Prime Minster Imran Khan has directed the federal and provincial organisations to facilitate Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in utilising the electricity it produces on wheeling charges so that the province could provide power to local industry on cheaper prices.

The prime minister at the request of the provincial government directed the Central Power Purchasing Committee (CPPA), National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and Peshawar Electricity supply Company (Pesco) to help out Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and provide facilities of transmission and supply of the power on wheeling charges to the province enabling it to utilize its electricity for its industry.

The wheeling charge is a price per megawatt-hour amount that a transmission company or organisation receives for the use of its transmission system to export power to another entity. This power export fee is referred to as a wheeling charge and the local industrialists have been long fighting for the supply of the locally produced electricity on wheeling charges by the transmission company.

Himayatullah Khan, advisor to the chief minister on power and energy, said that unlike the past they have started finding all the federal agencies responsible for the transmission and supply of the power in the country very cooperative. The change, he said, came after the prime minister’s directives issued at a meeting with the provincial team led by Chief Minister Mahmud Khan on January 25.

He said consultations with the local chambers of industry have also been completed and in a week’s time the advertisement would be floated inviting bidding for the purchase of power through the new arrangement.

He said the province through Power and Energy Organisation (PEDO) was producing 160 megawatt (MW) electricity at the cost of just Rs4 per unit. It includes 81 MW produced by Malakand III, Ranolia 22MW, Daral Khwar 34 MW, Machay hydropower project 2.5 MW and 18 MW by the Pehur power project. He pointed out that the province is providing some of the power to the national grid at the rate of Rs4 per unit and purchasing it back for Rs18 per unit.

Ironically, the federal entities are not making any payment for the 18 MW electrivity it has been receiving from the Pehur Power project since 2010 despite the fact that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has fixed the per unit price for the province at Rs4, Himayatullah Khan pointed out.

He said Ranolia was producing 22 MW power, but the CPPC was not willing to purchase the electricity produced by these projects. He added that this was brought time and again to the notice of the federal government in the past, but to no avail.

However, he said this time Prime Minster Imran Khan directed all the concerned bodies in very unequivocal words to provide Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through their transmission system the power produced by the province so that it could make it available to its industry on cheaper prices.

Himayatullah Khan said that being located far away from the sea Khyber Pakhtunhwa had locational disadvantages and the local industrialists were facing 20 percent losses on this very count. He added that the provincial government wanted to offset their losses by providing them electricity on comparatively low rates.

“In the first phase we want to provide power from the Pehur project to the nearby Gadoon Industrial Estate under this arrangement. In the later phases other industrial estates would also be provided power,” advisor to the chief minister maintained.

He said that apart from the vast oil and gas reserves, there were identified potential of about 60,000 MW in the province. “If the arrangement of power supply on wheeling charges worked, it would prove to be the best turnover for the national and provincial economies in the future,” he added.