KARACHI, April 4: Keeping in view the growing demand of electricity in the city, a consortium of the city government, Port Qasim Authority and a foreign firm will set up a power plant in the metropolis to generate 350 megawatts power.

The plant is being established at Port Qasim, for which the consortium has already acquired 20 acres of land. Four turbines, which had been gifted to the city government by the UAE government, would be installed in the plant to generate power.

City Nazim Mustafa Kamal told a press conference on Wednesday that the plant would produce 350mw electricity, which would be sold to the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation for onward distribution in the metropolis. “In future, the generation from this power plant would be increased to 1800mw from 350mw,” he added.

He urged KESC authorities to focus on self-generation instead of relying on other sources for getting electricity, as it was the main objective of the power utility’s privatisation.

“Though KESC is not related to me, it becomes a major issue of Karachi and being the representative of the people of Karachi, I am very concerned about it,” he said adding that as part of its responsibility, the city government is going to be involved in the power-generation process by setting up the power plant.

He said the KESC was getting over 600 megawatts electricity from WAPDA, which had recently restricted supply to only 300mw causing a major power breakdown in the city.