June 07, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 02, 1429

ISLAMABAD, June 6: The Pakistan Muslim League-Q on Friday claimed that its government had added 2,207 megawatts of electricity to the system in 2002-2007.

Addressing a press conference at the Parliament House, former minister of state for water and power Amir Muqam said that President Pervez Musharraf would not resign because he had been elected for five years and was determined to complete his tenure. Mr Muqam, who heads the party’s NWFP chapter, was responding to accusations that the PML-Q had not added a single megawatt and said that on June 5 last year, the system had acquired the capacity of producing 13,800 megawatts, but somehow it did not produce more than 11,200MW. Blaming bad governance, for the shortage, he said it was for Wapda to explain the reasons for its shortfall of 2,600MW in power production.

Mentioning various projects like Ghazi Barotha and Satpara dams, the AJK power project and Chashma nuclear plant, Mr Muqam said his party’s government had launched a comprehensive power generation plan and had signed 20 agreements with independent power producers for producing an additional 4,387MW in phases till 2010. He also mentioned the Mangla dam raising scheme, projects in the earthquake-hit areas of Batagram and Shangla and the Neelum-Jhelum project, Gomal Zam dam and Bhasha dam. He admitted that the demand had gone up by 1,400MW but said that the government should have taken measures to cope with the situation, instead of blaming the PML government for its failures.

PML-Q senator Kamil Ali Agha criticised the shelving of the Kalabagh dam and called for efforts to evolve a consensus on the project.