LAHORE: World Bank Vice President Martin Raiser, heading a four-member delegation, visited Tarbela 5th Extension and Dasu Hydropower projects on Saturday.

Wapda Chairman retired Lt Gen Sajjad Ghani and World Bank Executive Director Syed Tauqir Hussain Shah also accompanied Mr Raiser.

World Bank is providing financial support for the construction of these projects.

In the first leg of the visit, the WB vice president visited Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project, being constructed on Tunnel No 5 of the dam. He witnessed construction activities on main components of the project.

The project management apprised Mr Raiser of progress on the power house, tail race culvert, canal and switch yard.

Tarbela 5th Extension has an installed power generation capacity of 1530MW. On its completion, power generation capacity at Tarbela Dam will increase from 4,888MW to 6,418MW. The project will start electricity generation in 2025.

Later, Mr Raiser also visited 1410MW Tarbela 4th Extension Hydel Power Station, completed in 2018 with WB funding. He was informed during the visit that Tarbela 4th Extension, since its completion, has provided 22.56 billion units to the National Grid.

During the second leg, the WB vice president flew to the under-construction Dasu Hydropower project on River Indus upstream of Dasu town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He visited the power house, transformers cavern and the project colony to review the construction activities.

Dasu project team, in a briefing, informed him about the progress on main works of the project. It was briefed that the river diversion system has been functioning satisfactorily since its completion early this year. Flushing tunnel is also complete, while excavation of right bank bypass tunnel has recently been completed.

Mr Raiser was informed that the work on excavation of right and left abutment of the main dam, intake, power house, tail race tunnel, surge chamber and transformers cavern is in progress.

The 4320 MW-Dasu Hydropower project will be completed in two stages. At present, Wapda is constructing Stage-I, with installed generation capacity of 2160MW and annual energy generation of 12 billion units. Stage-I of the project is likely to be commissioned in 2026.

*Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2023