Combating the crisis: ‘Gas power plants will be completed in record time’

CM says the federal and provincial govts will jointly set up 3,600-megawatt gas power plants

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday said that three gas power plants at Balloki, Haveli Bahadur Shah and Bhikki would be completed within a record period of 27 months.

The Punjab chief minister expressed these views after inspecting various sections of an under-construction gas power plant at Balloki. After inspection of the 1,223-megawatt gas power plant, Shehbaz told media persons that time was not far when PML-N’s opponents would also be “compelled to appreciate our energy projects”.

“How come Musharraf, who raised the slogan of ‘Pakistan First’ did not think of the construction of the Dasu and Bhasha dams?” he remarked.

The CM said that the federal and provincial governments would jointly set up 3,600-megawatt gas power plants from their own resources at Balloki, Haveli Bahadur Shah and Bhikki.

He claimed that these three projects would be completed within a short period of 27 months whereas in the past, such projects were not completed even in 60 months.

He said that installation of generators has been completed while turbines would be available by March. The first turbine would become operational in July and the second in August. These turbines would add 750 megawatts of electricity to the national grid while in January 2018, the project would generate 1,223 megawatts, he said.

“In addition to these projects, many other energy projects are being executed under CPEC and work is being carried out speedily on 1,320-megawatt Sahiwal Coal Power Project which will be completed in June 2017 in spite of December 25, 2017,” Shehbaz said. He elaborated that a Chinese company, Harbin International, and US firm General Electric, have installed the Guddu power plant and these companies were also working on the Balloki gas power project.

Criticising Musharraf, he said the 985-megawatt Neelam-Jhelum Hydropower Plant was started in 2003 by the then military ruler and the project was still incomplete.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2017.