PESHAWAR: Chief Minister Mahmood Khan on Tuesday directed the energy and power department to initiate work on 489-megawatt new energy projects in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and work out the modalities specifying timelines for completion of the projects.

According to a statement issued here, he was chairing a meeting regarding energy and power department’s one year performance, which was also attended by PM’s adviser on establishment Arbab Shehzad, PTI leader Jehangir Tareen, finance minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra, adviser on energy Himayatullah Khan, adviser on merged districts Ajmal Wazir and additional chief secretary Shehzad Bangash.

The chief minister said that the provincial government had completed seven different projects in energy sector with total production capacity of 161.2MW, which would generate Rs4.4 billion revenue a year.

Officials informed the meeting that by end of year 2022 five other energy-related projects would be completed with a generation capacity of 216MW.

Mahmood Khan said that 280 of the 332 mini-hydel power projects had been completed which would benefit about 90,000 households. He said that additional 672 mini-hydel power projects were also being established which would generate 55MW of electricity to benefit 200,000 households.

It was stated that deliberations were also held on exemption of Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation from income tax, finalisation of wheeling regime to industrial consumers of the province, inclusion of provincial energy-related projects in national generation plan, inclusion of energy projects in the framework of CPEC, etc.

The meeting decided to convene a high-level meeting, including representation from the federal government, to sort out bottlenecks in the speedy implementation of these projects. It was informed that the provincial government intended to establish 17 hydel power projects with generating capacity of 3,000MW in Chitral, Swat and Dir districts.

The provincial government, with the cooperation of donor organisations, has planned Balakot, Barikot, Patrik Sheringal and Gabral Kalam hydropower projects, which would be completed by 2025. The meeting was informed that work on these projects would be initiated during the current year.

About the merged districts, the meeting was informed that the work on 10.5MW project in Chapri Charkhel area of Kurram district would be initiated in 2020.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2019