Senate body opposes electricity import from India Presses need to generate cheap energy

ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power Tuesday opposed the government’s plan of importing electricity from India and urged it to exploit own local water resources and expedite work on on-going hydropower projects to produce cheaper electricity. It took notice of bureaucracy’s ‘misleading’ the government through wrong information. The committee which met here with Senator Zahid Khan in the chair said that the US and Chinese companies have caused the national exchequer losses of billions of rupees, as they have backtracked their contract on Lakhra power project on pretext of technical faults. It summoned Secretary Mines, Power and Coal, Sindh, in the next meeting to provide details on the contract and action taken by the government against foreign companies for the project failure. The committee recommended that indigenous resources should be utilised for power generation, instead of importing electricity from India. Instead of importing electricity from India, the same fund should be spent on hydropower projects to get cheap power, the committee recommended. The committee took briefing from National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) on electricity import from India. It told to the committee that NTDC had no knowledge about $1.5 billion aid given by the World Bank for the purpose. It, however, said that $100 million has been earmarked by the Bank for the purpose, but the loan agreement has not yet been signed. Besides, the NTDC informed the committee that the price for the import of power from India had not been decided yet and that India preferred to export DC (direct current) electricity, which was costly. As a first step, it was told, an interaction was planned to be built between Amritsar and Lahore through 400 or 500 KV DC line.Additional secretary of the Ministry of Water and Power also disclosed that a company, Fateh Group, is mining on 8000 acres of government’s land in Jamshoro and extracting precious coal and selling it in the market to seven private factories. He also briefed the committee about the background of leasing of Lakhra Power Plant. He said in 2001, it was decided that the Sindh government should take necessary action to privatise Lakhra plant in consultation with Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda). It was told that Wapda has asked interested parties to submit their proposals, however, the matter was sub judice as the Supreme Court had set aside the decision of Sindh High Court and also transaction of leasing. After the SC decision, if the government decides to rehabilitate FBC Power Station Lakhra, then after refurbishment, two units will generate at least 80 MW at a time while the third will be on maintenance/stand by and boiler cleaning cost of units in thermal power plants, said the additional secretary. The meeting was attended by Moula Baksh Chandio, Senator Khalida Parveen and Senator Shahi Syed besides officials of the ministry of water and power and other relevant officials.