Interim govt committed to achieve self-reliance in electricity: Ali Zafar

ISLAMABAD, Jun 20 (APP):Caretaker Minister for Power Syed Ali Zafar Wednesday said the interim government was committed to ensure that the two months were not wasted, rather processes to achieve self-reliance in electricity should be initiated so that the coming government could easily take over from there.
Further the energy projects should be facilitated by PPIB in achieving various milestones leading to their successful implementation, he said during his visit to the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB), according to a press release.
Giving a briefing to the minister, PPIB Managing Director Shah Jahan Mirza said under the policy of the government and its resolve to eliminate load-shedding the Board had taken proactive role to complete the power projects well in time.
He said the PPIB was encouraging addition of affordable electricity hence prioritizing hydro and local coal resources for power generation while promoting imported coal based power generation as a reliable base load solution.
Currently, the PPIB was implementing two robust policy frameworks namely Power Generation Policy 2015 and Policy Framework for Private Sector Transmission Line Projects 2015 which offered market competitive incentives and simplified procedures for the investors, he added.
He informed the minister was informed that current target of PPIB was to complete nine projects of 8,200 MW by 2018 while 14,000 MW by 2021 out of which 6,420 MW had already been commissioned while six projects of 4,395 MW were under construction, five projects of 2,803 MW were under Financial Closing stage and one project of 300 MW was currently under tariff determination stage.
The PPIB MD also gave a detailed presentation to the minister on the PPIB’s achievements and current activities. Since its inception in 1994, the PPIB had so far provided power generation projects of 15,469 MW of around US$ 17 billion FDI which were playing crucial role in fulfilling country’s electricity demand.
While briefing on the CPEC, he said the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) had been instrumental in achieving a historical breakthrough in the energy history of Pakistan whereby the country’s coal reserves at Thar were being developed having coal mining and power generation projects of which construction of a 660 MW power generation and coal mining project had already started at the site.
The minister directed the management of PPIB to present the list of major challenges causing delay in various ongoing projects and warned that unnecessary delay in completion of power projects would not be acceptable.