CM orders expediting electrification of 765 villages, gasification of 116

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed the energy department to expedite the work assigned to distribution companies for supplying gas and electricity to rural areas of Sindh so that the benefit of the government’s policies gets trickled down to villagers.

He issued the directive while presiding over a meeting on Saturday to review village electrification and gasification scheme. The meeting was attended by Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh, Personal Secretary to the CM Sajid Jamal Abro, Energy Secretary Musadiq Khan, Finance Secretary Hassan Naqvi and other officers.

The meeting was told that the Annual Development Programme of the Sindh government had defined a criterion to undertake electrification of villages, according to which any village to be supplied power must have a population of 100 people or above and it should not be situated at a distance of more than four kilometres from the existing 11-kilovolt high tension line.

The energy minister informed the meeting that an amount of Rs11.2 billion from June 2008 to June 2018 for electrification of 8,514 villages had been reserved and of them 7,749 villages had been electrified so far while work on electrification of another 765 villages was in progress.

The CM was told that the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company had completed electrification of 4,832 villages and it was in the process of supplying power to 466 other villages. Meanwhile, the Sukkur Electric Power Company had been tasked with electrifying 2,967 villages, of which it had completed work on 2,669 and work on the remaining 298 villages was in progress.

The K-Electric was given the assignment of electrifying 248 villages and it had completed supplying power to 247 of them. There was a dispute of land in the last village, which was being resolved, the meeting was told.

The CM directed Shaikh to hold a meeting with the power distribution companies and direct them to complete the work on a priority basis. “It is surprising that the work on the remaining schemes has been going on since the last one year and this should be stepped up.”

Gasification schemes

The CM was told that the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) was given Rs6.5 billion for gasification of 957 villages. The SSGC had gasified 845 villages but work on the remaining 116 schemes was stopped.

Shah took exception to stopping the gasification work and directed the energy and finance departments to have a meeting with the SSGC authorities and reconcile the schemes and their expenditures within a week and report him about it.

He said winter had set in and villagers were living without natural gas, although the government had made payments to the SSGC for gasification. “This is unacceptable and must be reconciled within a week so that within the next two months, gasification work could be completed,” he said.

Grid company

Shaikh told the meeting that the federal government had issued a licence to the provincial government to launch its own grid company. He added that all preparations had been made to start the company.

The CM directed the energy department to provide him detailed operation and business plans for the grid company. “I want to give a complete package of solution to the people of Pakistan right from coal mining and wind power spade work to power generation and then transmission through the provincial government’s transmission and dispatch Company and establishment of grid station.”

He said he would prove his earlier claim that the solution of the national energy crisis lied with Sindh. The energy minister assured him that he would present a business plan for the grid company next week.