17 October 2004	Sunday	02 Ramazan 1425

QUETTA, Oct 16: The federal government has decided that if electricity consumers of Balochistan pay up half of their outstanding dues by December 31, the remaining sum would be waived off.

Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi said this at a high-level meeting here on Saturday.

The Governor of Balochistan, Owais Ahmed Ghani, Chief Minister Jam Mir Mohammad Yousuf, Minister for State Mir Naseer Mengal, members of the provincial Cabinet and Wapda officials attended the meeting.

The federal government is aware of the problems faced by agricultural and domestic consumers of electricity with regard to payment of outstanding dues because of a prolonged drought situation in the province, the minister said at the meeting.

He urged the provincial cabinet to apprise consumers of the concession and persuade them to benefit from the package.

He announced installation of grid stations at Wadah and Nal and said the projects would be completed in four months.

He said work on Dadu-Khuzdar transmission line would start within a month. The project would cost Rs3 billion and Wapda would foot the entire bill.

He said all those villages of Balochistan would be provided electricity where a survey had been completed.

In future, individual connections would be cut off instead of removing transformers so that consumers who had not defaulted on payment did not suffer, he said.

He said no area of Balochistan was experiencing load-shedding as Wapda had enough electricity to fulfil the country's requirement. Steps had already been taken to resolve the problem of over-billing and ensure that consumers received bills on time, he added, and went on to announce that, from now on, connection charges would be received in instalments.

The federal minister said that Wapda was giving priority to various projects in its development programme, including establishing new grid stations, laying new transmission lines, upgrading grid stations and schemes for improving the power supply system.

He said the second circuit of 132 KV Magochar-Khuzdar transmission would be completed soon.

The meeting also reviewed water sector projects. It was informed that the Merani Dam would be completed by June 30, 2006, at a cost of Rs5,811 million. It would irrigate 33,000 acres of land in Turbat.

About the Kachhi canal project, the meeting was told that a feasibility study of the project had already been completed and work on it would be launched soon.

The minister said he had taken notice of changes in the design of Subakzai Dam and soon a decision would be taken after reviewing the reason behind the changes.

He said Wapda needed help and cooperation from the provincial government for stopping power theft and installing the telemetry system.