ISLAMABAD, April 6: The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) will spend Rs5.9 billion to improve power generation and distribution systems in big cities by erecting new 132KV transmission lines , 66kv grid stations and converting existing 66kv grid stations into 132kv system.

Official sources told Dawn here on Monday that Wapda has been permitted by the Ministry of Water and Power to undertake a new huge project - Secondary Transmission Lines and Grid Stations - throughout the country. The project has been submitted to the Planning Commission for final approval.

The essential goal of the new power development plan is to create adequate generation, transmission and distribution facilities. The provision of secondary transmission lines and gird stations represents a second sector in the power network system which ensures optimal utilization of newly-established generation and primary transmission facilities and those that are expected to come up in future.

The Planning Commission was informed by Wapda that the experience of planning power system has led to draw an inference that the development of power network should correspond to the envisaged rate of growth in the national income.

It has also been noticed that the concentration of activities and facilities in big cities has created various socio-economic problems due to flow of population from rural areas to big cities.

Therefore, in the present scheme, endeavour has been made to ensure electric availability in remote/rural areas to improve the standard of the people living in those areas and also to usher in an era of prosperity which, to a greater extent is dependent on electricity.