President summons special meeting on energy crisis
ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari has said that the special meeting on Energy to be convened this week should also address the issue of circular debt in the power sector and recommend ways to address it. He said this after the Water and Power Minister pointed out that nearly 160 billion rupees of debt was left unpaid by the previous government which owed it to the power producers and Oil Companies.
The President advised the government to devise a workable plan for addressing the issue of circular debt and huge monies owed to private power producers by June this year. The Advisor to the Prime Minister on Finance said that the Finance Ministry would devise the plans within the stipulated time.
The Minister for Water and Power said provision of required quantity of oil to power plants would help mitigate 2000 MW worth of load-shedding. The situation would further improve after third week of this month when water releases would resume from Tarbela and Tarbela dams following desalting of canals and repair of barrages.
He expressed the confidence that as a result of steps being initiated by the Government there would be no load-shedding in the country by the end of the year. Raja Pervez Ashraf said power house is being brought to Karachi from Turkey to generate up to 250 MW of power for the city.
He said talks were held today with Chinese for establishment of 1150 MW power plant at Kohala while work would be expedited on Neelam-Jhelum project. Besides construction of Bhasha and Bunji dams, power plants based on Thar Coal would be established on fast track basis.-SANA
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