ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: The federal government has finalized a massive Rs1,188 billion programme to increase power generation from 12,064mw to 21,000mw in 2011.

According to an official document made available to Dawn, an additional capacity of about 9,000mw would be needed by the year 2011 in order to meet the projected demand.

The government hopes that out of total of Rs1,188 billion, about 30 per cent is expected to be funded from public sector, whereas the balance would be met through private sector.

“This indicates that about Rs32 to Rs35 billion would need to be invested by the Water and Power Development Authority annually,” the document said.

At present, there is a surplus capacity of around 1,000-1,500mw of electricity in the system during high water months — June to September.

However, due to less water inflow into the main dams at Tarbela and Mangla in the winter months, the hydel capacity of both the major hydropower plants decreases from installed capacity of 4,478mw to 2,687mw. Further, due to unforeseen breakdowns in thermal power plants available capacity in the system almost equals the demand and there is no surplus capacity in the system during low water months.

The surplus capacity, which is available only in the high water months, would be consumed during the next 3-4 years and a capacity shortage is expected to appear in the year 2005-06 even in high water months.

In order to inject additional capacity into the system, Wapda had prepared a water and power development programme up to year 2025 wherein a number of hydro and thermal capacities are proposed to be added into the system.

Most of the thermal power plants in public and private sectors are based on imported oil and indigenous gas, where abundant potential of hydro-power generation and generation on coal are available in the country. “In order to achieve self-reliance in power generation, the government has emphasized to exploit the maximum indigenous resources,” the document added.

It also said that a number of power projects which were given to the private sector under 1998 power policy could not be undertaken. The reason, the document said, was that the private sector did not show any interest in these projects.

The Planning Commission has proposed that power projects should be given maximum attention specially by providing timely funding. The Wapda authorities are of the view that they need drastic allocations for undertaking much-needed hydel power stations. They say there is a more scope of smaller hydro projects in the NWFP as a number of sites had already been identified there.