LAHORE: The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) has requested the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms (MoPDR) to allow it to start work on second stage of the 4,320MW Dasu Hydropower Project, in parallel with its stage I.

Wapda has also sought to take up with the Planning Commission proposals to amend or revise the PC-1, Dawn has learnt.

The project is a run-of-the-river scheme located 7km upstream of Dasu village on the Indus river (District Kohistan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), 74km downstream of the Bhasha Dam and 350km from Islamabad.

According to Project Cost-1 (PC-1) approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec), the construction of the project’s stage II worth $1.8 billion is scheduled to be launched after completion of its stage 1.

“Pakistan is facing an acute shortage of electricity and high tariff due to unbalance (sic) energy mix. To cope with current energy crisis and to bring down tariff, it is the need of the hour to inject cheap hydroelectric power in the national grid system as soon as possible.

“In view of this, implementation of the Dasu Hydropower Project’s stage II needs to be started parallel with stage 1,” says a letter sent by Wapda chairman Zafar Mehmood to the ministry recently.

The letter says that Ecnec had approved the project’s PC-1 for stage 1 of the project on March 28 this year. Since the World Bank’s board of directors approved financing for stage 1 last month, the project having an installed capacity of 2,160MW and annual energy generation of 12,222GWh will be completed in five years.

“In case the project’s stage 1 and stage II are started simultaneously and completed before accomplishment of the Bhasha dam, the annual energy will be 18,432GWh. It is pertinent to mention that no flushing would be required over the first 15 years of its operation. The construction of stage 1 of the project will inject 6,210GWh of annual energy worth about $1.9bn,” the letter says.

Officials say there is no harm in launching both phases of the project simultaneously since arrangements are almost complete in this regard.

“It is a very simple case because the MoPDR can amend the PC-1, allowing the Ministry of Water and Power or Wapda to start work on both phases simultaneously,” said a senior official.

The official said a high-level delegation representing the World Bank is likely to visit the Wapda House in Lahore soon after Eid to discuss modalities of the bank’s funding through signing of an agreement.

The bank’s BoD has approved the project and now its team will meet Wapda’s senior officials.

“Later both the parties (WB and Wapda) would sign an agreement in this regard,” he said, adding that the bank would start releasing funds after the signing of the agreement.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2014