PESHAWAR: State minister for water and power Abid Sher Ali on Thursday claimed that the federal government was committed to the early execution of power projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but the provincial government was creating hurdles to the efforts meant to end electricity crisis in the province.

“The PTI government is not cooperating with the federal government for executing power projects,” he told a news conference at Wapda House here.

The minister said the federal government had approved four 220KV power grid stations for KP to improve power supply. He said work was under way on Chakdara, Mansehra and Dera Ismail Khan grid stations but the provincial government was reluctant to acquire land for the one planned for Nowshera.

Abid Sher says energy crisis will end next year

“The KP government is not interested in the development of the Nowshera grid station otherwise it would have acquired the land for it until now,” he said.

Accompanied by Pesco chief executive officer Shabbir Ahmad and other relevant officials, Mr Abid Sher said the PTI government was not serious about overcoming the loadshedding crisis in KP otherwise it would have cooperated with the federal government in efforts meant to end line losses and power theft.

He said 224 of the Pesco’s all 963 feeders had more than 80 per cent line losses and therefore, the company had to suspend electricity there from 18 to 20 hours daily.

The minister said there was no loadshedding in around 415 feeders.

He said the federal government had doubled the capacity of the Pesco through the upgradation of power distribution and transmission line system in line with the commitment of water and power minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif.

Mr Abid Sher said he had ordered the registration of FIRs against 18 people, including Charsadda district nazim Fahad Riaz, for involvement in power theft.

He said the nazim’s name was number three on the long list of power thieves in the province.

The minister said on one hand, ruling PTI’s chief Imran Khan repeatedly talked about corruption but on the other, he had yet to ensure action against his own party men involved in power theft.

He alleged that the previous PPP government in the centre didn’t spend even a single penny on power generation and improvement of transmission system and thus, causing serious energy crisis.

Mr Abid Sher said the national exchequer suffered billions of rupees worth of losses after the last government doubled the cost of hydropower generation.

He said the current federal government was committed to building power plants and upgrading transmission lines across the country.

The minister said power crisis in the country would end by 2018.

“We’ve increased power production from 13,500 megawatts to 17,000 megawatts, while in March 2018, another 8,000-10,000 megawatts of electricity will be added to the system to help meet local needs,” he said.

Mr Abid Sher said the government was striving to generate adequate electricity at affordable rates.

“Our all policies and initiatives are aimed at eliminating loadshedding to improve living standards of the people and industrial growth in the country,” he said.

The minister he had directed the Pesco bosses to ensure distribution of accurate bills to the people and action against the officials involving in wrong billing in the province, especially Charsadda, Nowshera, Swat, Swabi and Mardan, and sought a progress report in this respect within a week.

He also ordered 100 percent mobile meter reading across the province to overcome such complaints.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2017