PESHAWAR, Aug 29: Local industrialists have opposed the NWFP government’s move to sell 71 megawatts of electricity, to be generated from Malakand-III hydropower project, to Wapda and demanded power supply to local industry to enable it to compete with industrial units of other provinces.

The industrialists made the demand on Tuesday after Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani inaugurated the hydropower project. The power project will start commercial production by January next year.

The chief minister, while speaking at the inaugural ceremony held on Tuesday, had hinted at giving 10 megawatts of electricity out of 81 megawatts to be generated from the project to the local industry and selling the remaining 71 megawatt to the Wapda.

The power sale to Wapda would generate Rs1.5 billion for the provincial government.

Speaking at a dinner held here on Tuesday, Numan Wazir, President of Industrialists Association of Peshawar (IAP), said that M-III was the first hydropower project that had been executed by the provincial government through its own resources.

He said the project’s commissioning would help exploit the NWFP’s huge potentials for generating hydropower for greater economic benefits, adding: “This is the area, which can eliminate the deep-rooted backwardness of our province.”

He said that NWFP industrial units had location disadvantage and it could be compensated only if the government provided these units cheap electricity.

Mr Wazir demanded that 81 megawatts of electricity to be generated from the M-III project should be given to local industrial units on the basis of wheeling charges by using the distribution network of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO).

He said the Nepra Act allowed such arrangements and the government should reconsider its decision and opt for wheeling charges instead of going to sell electricity to Wapda.