LAHORE: A Chinese company has been awarded Rs1.68 billion for Mangla Refurbishment Project (Package-9) by Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) on Monday.

A contract was signed between the two companies. Wapda is implementing Mangla Refurbishment Project with an approved PC-I cost of Rs52.224bn. The project, on its completion, will enhance generation capacity of the existing Mangla Hydel Power Station from 1,000 megawatt (MW) to 1,310MW, thus registering an increase of 310MW.

The refurbishment works have been divided into 11 different packages. Prior to signing of Package-9, which includes up-gradation of Mangla power station’s switchyard, as many as five other packages of the project have already been awarded and the works are in progress on them.

“The contract signing ceremony was held at the Wapda House. Wapda’s General Manager (Hydel) Development, Engineer Muhammad Arshad Chaudhry and China’s CMAC Engineering Company’s Business Manager, Ms Liang Xiaofang signed the agreement on behalf of their organisations,” says a press release.

The project will be implemented in various phases, wherein the generating units will be refurbished by closing down one tunnel (two generating units) at a time. Refurbishment of the first two units will be completed in 2019, while refurbishment of all 10 generating units is likely to be accomplished by 2024.

“USAID is providing $150 million as grant, while AFD is providing 90m euros as loan for the project, while the remaining amount is being arranged by Wapda through loans and its own resources,” the release said.

Published in Dawn, September 18th, 2018