August 19, 2003	Tuesday	Jumadi-us-Sani 20, 1424

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ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: President Pervez Musharraf will inaugurate the first 290-megawatt unit of the $2.05 billion Ghazi Barotha Hydropower Project (GBHP) on Tuesday, seven kilometres downstream from Tarbela Dam in the NWFP.

The remaining four units, capable of producing 290-MW each, of the 1,450-MW project would be energized one after the other every four months and the project would be fully operational by Aug 2004. The GBHP is Pakistan’s largest project that has been undertaken since the Mangla Dam project in 1967.

The project’s power generation cost is estimated at 58 paisa per unit. While the project’s energy production cost is more than 100 per cent higher than that of electricity produced at Tarbela and Mangla power houses but it is still more than 300 per cent lower than that of all the thermal power stations currently run by the public and private sector.

The GBHP is a major project designed to meet the acute shortage of peak power in the country. The project was approved in 1994 with a total cost of $2.5 billion but was later revised to $2.25 billion in 1995 and its cost was further reduced to $2.199 billion in Dec 1999.

Major portion of the financing amounting to about $350 million has been arranged by a consortium led by the World Bank, Asian Development Bank ($300 million each), Overseas Economic cooperation Fund ($275 million) and Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau (KfW) of Germany ($129 million).

The project comprises three main components — barrage, power channel and power complex.

The barrage will re-regulate the daily discharges from Tarbela and divert water into the power channel. Compensation water during the low flow season and excess flows during the high flow season will be released downstream of the barrage.

The barrage will be able to pass the flood through its 20 standard bays and eight under-sluices at normal pond level. A fuse plug will help pass extreme flow upto the capacity of Tarbela’s spillways and tunnels.

The concrete-lined power channel will convey upto 1,600 cumecs (cubic metres per sec) (56,500 cusecs) of water from the barrage to the power complex. The channel is 52 Km long with a bed slope of 1 in 9600, a water depth of 9 metres, a base width of 58.4 metres and a velocity of 2.33 metre/sec.

The power complex is located near the confluence of the Indus and Haro rivers. It will comprise a fore bay, a siphon spillway, two head ponds, a power intake structure, Penstoks, a power house with five 290-MW turbo-generators and a tailrace channel.