CHITRAL: Thousands of people thronged the playground of a local college to see the formal inauguration of work on the Rs263 million Birmogh Golen hydropower station.

Provincial irrigation minister Mehmood Khan unveiled the long-awaited project’s plaque amid clapping and shouting of slogans by participants, who belonged to Chitral city and its adjoining villages.

The power station, whose construction is to be financed by the European Union through the Sarhad Rural Support Programme, will have the capacity to produce two megawatts electricity and thus, addressing the excessive power outages in the area.

People say project will address excessive power outages

The project, the largest to be carried out by a nongovernmental organisation in Chitral in nine months, will ensure smooth electric supply to the people of Chitral, which remains without electricity for days and even weeks due to its suspension from the national grid at Lowari Pass.

Besides the minister, local MNA and MPAs and representatives of civil society also attended the ceremony and showered praise on the SRSP for taking the initiative to end the prolonged power cuts in the area.

SRSP chief executive officer Shahzada Masoodul Mulk said the project would be executed as a social enterprise, a concept under which SRSP managed the established projects under principles of financial sustainability and equitable sharing of benefits with the community for social development purposes.

He said his organisation had embarked on the exploitation of the fabulous hydropower potential in Malakand division for the last two years under its Programme for Economic Activity and Community Empowerment project financed by the European Union.

Mulk said in addition to the power station being established at Birmogh, construction of 700 kilowatts and 500 kilowatts powerhouses in Booni, Mastuj and Droshand would begin next week.

Minister Mehmood Khan said the government would continue encouraging and supporting credible institutions like SRSP to play an important role in development by providing it both with resources and space to operate.

He said another project with the EU support called community driven local development would also be launched soon in Malakand division to empower communities at local level and address infrastructural problems.

Local MNA Shahzada Iftikharuddin, MPAs Saleem Khan and Fouzia Bibi and Chitral Scouts commandant Colonel Naeem Iqbal also spoke on the occasion and declared the execution of the power project a historic event in Chitral.

Hayatullah Khan, president of Awami Power Committee, a local residents’ panel against power outages, said it was a memorable day for them as their long cherished dream had come true.

He said power outages had rendered scores of people jobless besides making life miserable for other people and therefore, the establishment of power station would help ease their misery.

Published in Dawn, March 18th, 2015

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