KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that his government is paying special attention to the development of Karachi but this uplift will hardly make any difference without meeting the energy demand of the city.

He said he had been receiving a lot of complaints regarding loadshedding, and thus “K-Electric (KE) has to chalk out a detailed plan to enhance its generation and improve its transmission and distribution systems.”

He said this while presiding over a meeting to review the overall KE power generation capacity and its future endeavours to make Karachi once again the city of lights, and to allow trade to flourish and industry to give a new boost to the national economy.

Briefing the CM, KE CEO Tayyab Tareen said that at present there was a demand of 3,056MW against which 2,635MW were available in the system. The shortfall was of 421MW which is being covered through load management.

Referring to complaints about loadshedding, Mr Tareen said that there were areas where a lot of ‘kundas’ were fixed directly in the supply lines and as a result power failures occurred. They put extra load on the system which not only damaged the KE system but tripped the feeders. “This is actually power failure not loadshedding,” he said.

He also pointed out that most of the pockets of Korangi, Orangi, Landhi and Lines area have been made into loadshedding free zones. The reason is that residents pay their power bills, do not adopt kundas and cooperate with KE and thus are getting smooth supply of electricity.

The KE chief also said that Karachi’s peak demand was expected to reach over 4.5GW by 2023. KE has received applications of 2.5GW new connections by 2020, which include 600MW of Bahria Town, 100MW for DHA City, and 50MW for Textile City.

Mr Tareen claimed that in 2015-16 there is shortfall of 421MW but by 2026 there would a 106MW surplus because the demand would reach 5,243 against the capacity of 5,349MW.

The CM was further informed that an investment of $1.6 billion has been planned to increase generation capacity by adding 1,983MW through independent power producers and 2,300 MW from external power producers in the system.

Appreciating the efforts and hard work of the CEO and his team for improving the performance of KE, the CM also urged the KE administration to not only make arrangements to cover the shortfall gap through future planning, improving customer service, and reducing tariff in which the Sindh government would extend its full support.

The meeting was also attended by Mr Asif, chief generation & transmission officer, Dale Sinkler and others while the Sindh government was represented by energy secretary Agha Wasif, principal secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch and finance secretary Hassan Naqvi, among others.

He said that it was the dream of Benazir Bhutto to steer the country out of loadshedding by generating electricity on coal-fired power plants.

Progress on coal project

The CM also reviewed the progress of Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company (SECMC) in the mining operations that have started at Thar Coal Filed Block-II, as well as the efforts under way to install a coal-fired power plant to generate 660MW by 2019.

SECMC CEO Shamsuddin Shaikh, at a briefing, told the CM that the mining operation had begun and that overall six per cent progress had been achieved.

He said that 31m mine depth had been achieved, large-scale mining equipment would reach by next month, and drilling of de-watering wells and other infrastructure is in progress.

Talking about the progress of two coal fired power plants, each one of 330MW, Mr Shaikh said that basic engineering has been completed, procurement activities are ahead of schedule with the placement of purchase order for boiler, steam turbine and steam turbine auxiliaries. He added that the construction activities at the site include advanced completion of piling at stack area and turbine main hall while construction of the foundation of piling of turbine pumps is in progress. It would cost $1.1 billion.

CM urged the SECMC to accommodate as much local in jobs as possible. He was informed that presently, 2,028 employees were working there, of them 647 were Chinese, 997 Tharis and 384 others. The CM directed the CEO to create employment opportunities for women too.

The CM, taking a policy decision, approved the establishment of a school over two acre of land near Thar Lodges, Islamkot, so that local residents would be imparted proper education. “I am keen to see Tharis working on good positions in the companies working there and to work at Thar Coal field,” he said. He urged the secretary finance to get the school started on public-private partnership mode.

He also directed IG police to provide more security at Thar coal field Block-II for Chinese engineers. The home secretary informed the CM that presently 35 Rangers personnel have been deployed on the security of foreigners working at Block-II, and 134 policemen have also been deployed to the site. More police force would be deployed there till the creation of a special force of 2,000 ex-army men for CPEC projects.

CM flies to Dubai today

The CM is also scheduled to fly to Dubai on Saturday morning where he would meet party leader Asif Ali Zardari and report to him about his government’s performance, it is reliably learnt.

During the meeting the ongoing development on the MQM front and PPP’s achievement in the local government elections are also likely to be reviewed, revealed the sources said.

After the meeting, the CM would fly to Lahore on Monday morning where he would attend the meeting on National Finance Comission summoned by the Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif which is to be attended by all the chief ministers.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2016