‘Power generation projects of 215 MWs in progress in KP’

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was told on Monday that a total of 215 megawatts hydel power generation projects were in progress in the province and would be completed phase-wise till 2022.

During the previous government of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), a small hydel power projects of 67.2 megawatt was completed while projects of 91 megawatts were completed during the Awami National Party (ANP) and Pakistan People’s Party ((PPP) coalition setup, Advisor to the chief minister, Ziaullah Afridi, informed the House. Winding up the debate on electricity and gas problems, he said Rs20 billion of the hydel net profit had been received from the centre and Rs36 billion more would also be released.

He added that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Oil and Gas Development Company Limited was working on oil and gas exploration schemes. The adviser said that oil production in the province had reached 50,000 barrels that was 50 percent of the country’s whole production.

He said the provincial government would invite federal Minister for Power Umar Ayub and Minister for Oil and Gas Ghulam Sarwar Khan to hold a meeting with members from both the treasury and opposition over the electricity and gas issues. The adviser said the constituencies of the treasury members were also facing problems of overbilling, loadshedding, low voltage and low pressure of gas but they were not making a hue and cry like the opposition.

Earlier, initiating the debate on the issue, Inayatullah Khan of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) said that gas consumers had received inflated bills. He asked for details about the directives of the prime minister about returning the amount of overbilling to the consumers.

He said he had received a bill of Rs43,000 and the bill of opposition leader was also about one and a half lakh. The JI MPA said the government had increased gas tariff by 100 percent and there were reports of more increase of 40 percent while loadshedding of electricity in areas like Malakand and Hazara divisions was above 22 hours a day despite the fact consumers in these areas were paying 100 percent bills.