KARACHI, Nov 11: The Federal Minister for Water and Power, Liaquat Ali Jatoi, on Friday said that the government was keenly pursuing the policy of attracting foreign investment in the power sector and tapping indigenous resources for augmenting electricity generation to support the national industrial and economic growth.

He said this during a visit to the site of the HUBCO-KESC interconnection, about 30km away from the city off the RCD Highway.

The minister said that President Musharrraf was eager to build up the energy infrastructure of the country on fast track and on his directives he was reviewing the Hubco-KESC link for speedy completion and increasing power supply of Karachi by 1000MW.

Work on the link was started in Oct 2004 by Siemens and is scheduled to be completed in July 2006. But as a result of a request from the minister the project completion period was reduced by 100 days and will now be commissioned in April 2006.

The federal minister in order to examine the progress of the project undertook an inspection visit of the site. MD KESC Brig Tariq Saddozai and other senior officials accompanied the federal minister.

Siemen’s Sohail Akhtar and Abdul Razzaq gave a detailed presentation on the work already completed and showed a roadmap of completion according to the revised completion schedule.

About 60 to 70 per cent work on linking the KESC with WAPDA IPP Hubco has already finished.

Talking to newsmen on the occasion, Mr Jatoi said President Musharraf placed significant importance to the power sector both in terms of attracting foreign investment and tapping available resources ie hydel, coal, natural gas for power generation.

The federal government has already approved 16 independent power projects (IPPs) with generation capacity of 3700MW, which will fetch an estimated investment of $4 billion, he informed.

Mr Jatoi said that a few months back, proposals were invited through road shows in London and Dubai for interest of foreign investors which attracted 30 potential parties. Besides, more power plants are also being encouraged for Karachi, he added.

He also met foreign engineers and local workers deployed at the site during his inspection of 220KV gas insulated station and motivated them for speedy completion of the job.

The minister expressed satisfaction over the work progress.—PPI