PESHAWAR, Jan 17: The NWFP government will borrow a loan of US$180 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for construction of three small hydel stations in the province.

The credit facility, which is part of $510 million worth loan package offered for promotion of renewal energy in Pakistan, will enable the provincial government to generate collectively 50.7MW from the three projects in northern parts of NWFP.

Likewise, the government also intends to finance three feasibility studies for similar nature projects under the same package, officials at Sarhad Hydel Development Organisation (SHYDO) told Dawn.

An agreement, said the officials, was signed between the ADB and provincial governments of Frontier and Punjab provinces on Oct 5 last year. This is a multi-tranche facility, as the funds will be issued in parts linked with the progress of earlier released amount.

The loan facility, said the official, had been acquired for total eight small hydel projects, which includes three in NWFP and five in Punjab.

The projects to be financed through this facility in NWFP include Dharal Khwar project of 36.6MW, Ranolia Khwar project of 11.5MW and Machai project of 2.6MW. Sites for these projects are located at Swat, Kohistan and Mardan districts, the officials explained.

Feasibilities for these ‘ready-to-initiate’ projects were conducted earlier, as now the SHYDO was in the process of selecting contractors to execute the projects. Completion year for these proposed projects were set as 2011.

The SHYDO, said the official, was also intending to conduct feasibility studies of three suitable sites for small hydel stations in the province. These include Koto project of 18MW in Timergrah, Jabori project 8MW in Mansehra and Karora project 7.5MW located in Shangla districts of the province.

Total estimated cost of these projects was Rs 4.7 billion, out of which 80 per cent amount will be of ADB’s loan, while the rest will be arranged locally.

The SHYDO had already identified a number of potential sites, which had the capacity to generate 1,3584MW electricity through small and medium power projects.

Of these identified sites, projects having generation capacity of 6000MW were under construction both by the SHYDO, Wapda and private firms.

Officials explained that the recent energy-crisis, when power shortage touched 3,600MW, increased the need of constructing small and medium size hydel power stations to fulfil the demand of electricity that would reach to 62,590 MW by 2030.

The country has the resources of generating 40,000MW hydel power, more than 70 per cent located in NWFP, out of which just 6,500MW had so far been tapped.