Unprecedented savings, continuity in power projects to glow every home: PM

BALLOKI (KASUR), Nov 10 (APP): Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Tuesday said that the unprecedented savings of Rs 110 billion in three re-gasified power projects and continuity in their completion would brighten up every home in the country.
“If such determination, transparency and hard work was displayed in the past, today’s Pakistan would have been quite different,”he said while addressing a ceremony after performing ground breaking of 1223MW Balloki Power Plant here.
The project would be completed in 2017. Its total cost stands at $469,000 per MW with total efficiency of 61.63 per cent. Savings in its construction cost is Rs 38.6 billion while annual savings achieved due to better efficiency would be Rs 5.8 billion.
The Prime Minister said that he had a long political career in which he had never heard or witnessed such unprecedented huge savings in execution of power projects.
He said during his previous tenures as chief minister and prime minister he never had witnessed such efficiency in the execution of development projects. “It is a unique precedent in Pakistan’s history for which all stakeholders and authorities
concerned deserved appreciation.”
He informed the gathering that the federal government and
Punjab government were executing these projects for which they had
allocated a huge sum of Rs 300 billion in the public sector
development programme.
Unlike the past practices, nobody was demanding kickbacks and
favours as complete transparency was adopted during the floating of
international biddings, he added.
A power project was costing about Rs 93 billion in the past, now it
was being completed under Rs 50 billion, the Prime Minister said, adding
“Every single paisa has a value for us which will be spent on other public projects.”
He said after completion of power projects, millions of homes
across the country would get enough power which had been facing a 10
to 12 hours loadshedding in a day in the past.
The Prime Minister also mentioned the trickle down effects of
the development projects and said the wheel of industry would move
on and the low cost of power would give a spur to production, ending unemployment.
The construction work on various coal-fired projects was also
underway. The interest rate was slashed to 5 to 6 per cent, contrary to
staggering 18 per cent in the past.