QUETTA, Oct 22: The chief executive of the Quetta Electric Supply Company (Qesco) has said that Rs6.42 billion has been allocated for power projects in Balochistan.

He said the province was facing a shortage of 445MW owing to which loadshedding was carried out for six hours in the provincial capital and twelve hours in rural areas.

Addressing a press conference at the press club, Qesco chief executive Shafiq Ahmed Khattak said that development work worth Rs2,540 million had been carried out since 2006 and projects worth Rs3,880 million would be completed under the development programme for 2008-09.

He said the projects included construction of new grid stations, extension and augmentation of grid stations, new transmission lines, additional transformers, conversion of grid stations and system augmentation.

Mr Khattak said that total requirement of electricity in Balochistan, excluding the Makran coastal areas, was 1,078MW whereas availability of power was 633MW.

He said that in the Makran grid network that included Turbat, Panjgur, Pasni and Gwadar, the demand of power was 33MW and Iran supplied 35MW. Therefore Qesco had surplus of 2MW power in Makran.

He said that after the completion of 220KV Dadu-Khuzdar and 220KV D.G. Khan-Loralai projects at a cost of Rs10.44 billion in 2010 the province would get 700MW electricity that would meet the requirement to a great extent.