Federal Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar has directed Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to speed up work on the 1,350-megawatt Tarbela 4th Extension hydropower project and complete it ahead of time.
Presiding over a meeting during his first visit to the Tarbela Dam on Friday, the minister said after completion of the extension project, power crisis would ease up and people would get cheap electricity.
He said all units of Tarbela power house should be in operational condition and there should be no prolonged shutdown due to minor fault. “Spare parts should be made available and technical staff should be present round the clock,” he stressed.
“During summer, no risk of long-hour shutdown will be allowed as it increases the power shortfall,” he said.
He said the government was focusing on hydropower generation and a number of small and big projects had been started. “Hydropower is not only an environment-friendly electricity resource but also the cheapest one.”
Earlier, in a briefing to the minister, Wapda general manager said generation capacity of Tarbela power house would rise to 4,828 megawatts after the installation of new units having capacity of 1,350 MW as part of the 4th Extension project.
The project includes installation of three units of 450 MW each at Tarbela Dam on Tunnel 4, being used for irrigation releases.
The project will provide about 3.5 billion units of low-cost electricity to the national grid per annum.
The minister was also briefed on water storage capacity, inflows and outflows and was told that water was being released as per instructions of Indus River System Authority (Irsa).
Published in The Express Tribune, July 9th, 2011.
COMMENTS (1)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
It is commendable that federal minister paid a visit to Tarbela Dam and attended a briefing
on pace of work being executed on extension of tunnel #4. I also suggest that the same
exercise may be carried out by the minister in rest of the hydel power plants in the
country. As it happend in Mangla Dam that few units were shut down for want of spare
needed for replacement in 2009.Instructions on all hydel power plants be issued to run on
optimum efficiency. This will be a great service to Pakistan.