SUKKUR, Nov 8: The Ghazi Barotha hydel project is set to produce about 1,450 megawatts of electricity, and it is estimated to cost around 60 paisa per unit.

This was stated by the general manager of the project, Brig Mohammad Zareen, on Thursday while briefing a delegation of Sukkur-based journalists at Ghazi Barotha.

Citing financial reasons for the project’s high cost of power production, he said that these reasons included higher dollar conversion rate and imposition of GST on the components used in the project and added that the power from the project would cost more than the cost of power from Tarbela or Mangla dams.

The project, he said, would transmit electricity through 500- KV circuits to WAPDA’s national grid. Ghazi Barotha project, he said, besides being capable of providing power peaking capacity throughout the year, it would supplement Tarbela’s power generation during low reservoir levels.

The project, which would have a discharge capacity of 1,600 cusecs, was nearing completion and its first unit would be commissioned in the first week of July, 2003, this was stated by the deputy construction manager, Syed Hamid Hasan.

The remaining four units would be commissioned after every three months, he added.

The 52-kilometre-long power channel, built from Ghazi (Haripur/Topi, NWFP) to Attock (Punjab), has 34 road bridges, including a dual-lane bridge for the G. T. Road.

Earlier, Brig Zareen said that Wapda was bearing a total cost of $1,035.5 million out of a total investment of $2,035.84.

The director general, public relations, Wapda, Col. Safeer Ahmed Tarar, and the projects’s chief engineer, Amir Alam Khan, were also present on the occasion.