LAHORE: The National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) energised on Saturday the newly completed 500kV Haveli Bahadur Shah (Jhang) -- Gatti transmission line to meet the demand of domestic, commercial, industrial and agriculture consumers in urban and rural areas of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (Fesco).

Completion of this mega project would also protect the 500kV, 220kV power transmission and 132kV distribution system of the NTDC as well as Fesco from overloading in peak hours.

“With the completion of the projects, various issues related to increasing demand, load in the areas of Faisalabad, Jhang, Chiniot, Samundri, Toba Tek Singh, Gojra and Sargodha will be resolved. The completion will further ease the load of the Lahore Electric Supply Company and Multan Electric Power Company,” an NTDC spokesman told Dawn.

“We, despite the Covid-19 lockdown, are completing our ongoing projects on fast track with best utilisation of resources,” he added.

Haveli Bahadur Shah -- Gatti line, which is 38km long 500kV double circuit quad bundle one, has been laid by fixing 126 towers.

“The line was completed on May 22 (Friday) and energised on May 23 (Saturday) successfully,” he added.

The NTDC spokesman said, the line after energisation, has started evacuating power from 1,200MW Haveli Bahadur Shah power plant to Gatti Faislabad grid via under-construction 500kV Grid Station Faisalabad (West).

“The construction work at 500kV Grid Station, Faisalabad West is also being completed at fast pace. The completion of the project will tackle the increasing demand of electricity of domestic, industrial, commercial and agriculture consumers.”

While updating on completion of another task on war footing, the spokesman said the NTDC team has also completed the installation/erection work of a collapsed tower of 500 kV Rawat-Neelum Jhelum transmission line. Now this line has also been energised successfully.

“This will facilitate the consumers of Islamabad, Rawalpindi and other parts of north Punjab,” he added.

LESCO: A Lesco team on Saturday carried out search operations at Bilal Ganj, Amin Park, Jia Musa, Burj Attari, Bhati and Shadbagh areas and found 39 connections receiving power from unauthorised sources.

The team submitted applications against the power thieves and charged them with over Rs76,000 units, according to a spokesman.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2020