LAHORE, Aug 7: Punjab Public Health Minister Sardar Hasan Akhtar called upon power experts and engineers on Tuesday to develop more energy resources of water, power and gas to meet the increasing requirements of the country.

He said this at the inauguration of a two-day international conference and expo of energy technology ‘Energy Asia 2007’ at Alhamra. The conference has been organised by The Development Times in collaboration with the University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore; Board of Investment; Private Power and Infrastructure Board; Institution of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and Engineers Study Forum.

Mr Akhtar said Pakistan was facing an acute shortage of power ranging from 1,500 megawatt to 2,000 megawatt which had adversely affected development projects, industrial and agricultural production besides causing great inconvenience to people.

He said there was also shortage of irrigation water as its per capita availability had declined from 5,400 cubic meters to 1,200 cubic meters because of four-fold increase in population during the past 60 years. He said the government had plans to develop water and power resources and work had started on the Bhasha Dam and raising of the Mangla Dam level while efforts were being made to evolve a national consensus on the construction of the Kalabagh Dam.

He said once these projects were completed by 2020, water and power shortage would be overcome to a large extent.

He said Pakistan was also facing shortage of gas. Negotiations were in progress to import gas from Iran for which purpose a gas pipeline would be laid to supply Iranian gas to Pakistan and India. The project would help meet the gas shortage.

Wapda general manager (power) Arshad Chughtai said the prevailing power shortage was about 2,000 MW and

Wapda was taking measures to save the electricity by reducing its consumption wherever it was possible.