0
KARACHI, July 17: An agreement for the establishment of a 35-megawatt power plant to ensure an uninterrupted electricity supply to the Dhabeji pumping station was signed here on Tuesday between the Karachi Water & Sewerage Board and a US-based Pakistani firm.
The $40 million power plant, to be set up at Dhabeji by Energy Saving Solutions ESS (Pvt) Limited on a BOT (built, operate and transfer) basis, is scheduled to be completed within 21 months.
KWSB Managing Director Ghulam Arif and the ESS chairman, Zafar Ansar, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.
City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal, who is also chairman of the KWSB, was the guest of honour at the ceremony, which was largely attended by senior officials of the utility and the city government and businessmen.
Interestingly, the KWSB and ESS took more than 21 months to sign the agreement, although the project’s letter of intent was issued to the same firm in August 2005. The project’s bidding process initially commenced in 2002 with the issuance of letters of interest. The process of pre-qualifying firms was accomplished in February 2005.
Had the project been signed shortly after the issuance of the letter of intent, the project would have already been commissioned in May or June 2007, sources in the KWSB conceded, saying that the project could not take off earlier owing to litigation and partly because of a lack of interest shown by both the KWSB and the ESS.
Cause of delay
Zafar Ansar, however, told Dawn that the chief cause of such an inordinate delay in executing the project’s agreement was the Sui Southern Gas Company’s unwillingness to ensure the supply of gas required for running the plant.
Speaking on the occasion, the city nazim said that the SSGC’s managing director had assured the provision of the required gas for the power plant.
Highlighting the salient features of the project, he said that with the commissioning of the power plant, not only would the Karachiites get an uninterrupted water supply but the KWSB would be saving Rs2 billion, which it was paying to the KESC under the head of electricity charges.
Moreover, the power plant would ensure an uninterrupted power supply at the Dhabeji pumping station and, as such, pipelines which often burst and developed leakages upon getting jerks whenever there was a sudden power breakdown at the station, would be saved, he added.
Surplus power
He said that since the Dhabeji pumping station would consume 28 megawatts as against the 35 megawatts to be produced by the power plant, the surplus power would be supplied to the city.
The nazim also announced that the KWSB intended to set up a power plant at the North-East Karachi pumping station and the surplus power would be sold to the KESC for overcoming the city’s ever-growing electricity needs.
In his welcome address, the KWSB managing director said that “the power plant, on its commissioning, will have two-fold benefits: it will help save the KWSB Rs7 billion in the next 25 years and ensure an uninterrupted supply to the city from the Dhabeji pumping station.
