ISLAMABAD: The world’s leading power investors endorsed Pakistan’s power sector development strategy and made suggestions for improving the investment process at an investors’ roundtable hosted by the World Bank, the IFC, and the Government of Pakistan at the World Bank Group offices in Washington DC. The press release received from Washington DC says that the roundtable was attended by the world’s leading power investors such as AES (USA), International Power (UK), Zorlu (Turkey), Global Steel Holdings (UK), Waddell & Reed (USA), Barrick Gold (Canada), Aga Khan Fund for Economic Development, Amwal (USA), Tata Power (India), and Essar Group (India) as well as leading Pakistani investors such as Engro, Jahangir Siddiqui Group, Fatima Group, Hasan Associates, and Hubco. Read the full story

ISLAMABAD: The government of Pakistan is fully committed to eliminate the power crises prevailing in the country and all out efforts are underway to cope with the menace of load shedding in the country by adopting rationale mechanism to generate more electricity through private sector. This was stated by the Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf while talking on the occasion of the bids opening ceremony of 500 MW each Independent Power Projects at Faisalabad and Dadu. Read the full story

ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed today that the government has initiated short and long term strategy to overcome the power crises and elimination of load-shedding on emergency basis. Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf told the Senate during question hour that the country is facing power crisis since last two years due to gap in supply and demand. He said in order to ensure minimization of load-shedding and availability of continuous power supply, Pakistan Electric Power Company has initiated immediate crisis management. He said a high level Load Management Commission has been set up to oversee the load management programme.

The Minister said arrangements are being made to generate 2200 megawatts power on emergency basis to add to the system. He said under the short term plan 3000 megawatts would be generated by private sector while the same quantity of electricity would be generated by the public sector. The Minister said the government is also focusing on the alternate energy resources to ease the situation. Answering a question the Minister said that the government has allocated over 2.8 billion rupees for the construction of Kurram Tangi Dam project and 847 million rupees have been released to WAPDA.

Minister for Water and Power to another question informed the House that the government has announced a new petroleum policy last year with an objective to enhance exploration activities and attract investment from home and abroad. He said a decision has been taken to ensure provision of natural gas to the people in five kilometres radius from where the gas is produced.