ISLAMABAD, May 9: The federal government has allowed Wapda to undertake four more hydroelectric projects worth billions of rupees to meet the country's growing energy requirements.
Officials told Dawn here on Saturday that Wapda had submitted feasibility studies to the Planning Commission to start these four projects as early as possible. Roughly Rs500 million had been spent on feasibility studies of the projects.
Projects, including Godubar Hydropower project in Chitral Valley, Khazana Dam on Panjkora River in the NWFP, extension of Hydrological Network in Northern regions of Pakistan and small dams and delay-action dams in the Southern NWFP.
The initiation of these projects, sources said, is in line with the identification of a number of hydel power projects that offer promising potential sites for generating electricity.
Godubar Hydropower will be a run-of-river project aimed at providing additional power to the national grid to improve the reliability of its system by using indigenous energy resources to help narrow down the supply-demand gap.
The project, estimated to cost $873.25 million by German GTZ company, would have an installed capacity of 409 megawatts capable of generating 1,791 GHh of electric energy annually.
The 'Extension of Hydrological Network in Northern Regions of Pakistan' project has been planned for proper evaluation of hydropower potential of prospective streams/channels in the Northern Areas.
Khazana Dam is a multi-purpose project which would increase the energy generation of planned proposed dams located downstream at Kalangai and Munda. It would provide a live storage of 550,000 million acre-foot located at relatively short distances to irrigation network of the NWFP and Punjab.
The regulation of Panjkora at Khazana would improve the water availability on downstream irrigation network during the Rabi season. It would also help reduce flood affect of Kabul River in the stretch from Nowshera to Attock bridge on River Indus.
The project objective of the 'Small Dams and Delay Action Dams in Southern Area of NWFP' would provide irrigation facilities to patches of land which are not under irrigation.
The construction of dam would provide employment opportunities to local people during and after the commissioning of the project. The national grid has an installed capacity as on November 2001 is 15,900 MW, of which 5,009 MW is generated through hydroelectric power stations and 10,626 MW through thermal power stations and 325 MW through Chashma Nuclear Power station.
