HYDERABAD:
The 132KV Ghangra Mori Grid Station was inaugurated on Sunday amid hopes that Hyderabad’s industrial areas would now get an uninterrupted power supply.
The new grid station would supply electricity to parts of Hyderabad and Tando Muhammad Khan. It would help bring down line losses, address low voltage and fluctuation problems and provide an abundant supply to SITE, Hyderabad. The project, financed through the Public Sector Development Programme, cost Rs14 billion.
Federal Minister for Water and Power and Privatisation Syed Naveed Qamar inaugurated it along with the 118 helpline centre of the Miran Muhammad Shah sub-division office of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco). “[Hopefully this] will help industrial expansion,” he said. Earlier on, the area was supplied via a 25- to 30-mile long line from Tando Allahyar district.
“If you ask people what is the biggest thing that annoys them, they would probably refer to electricity,” said the minister. “But, interestingly, a major part of their complaints are of low voltage, fluctuation, maintenance or replacement of old transformers and lines, which are not related to demand and supply gap at the central level.”
Hesco’s 24-hour helpline could help increase consumer satisfaction.
Speaking before him, Hesco chief Muzaffar Abbassi said that around 30,000 consumers from the area were being handled by the Hali Road subdivision. Half of the consumers from these 30,000 would now be transferred to the Mian Muhammad Shah subdivision. This falls in Muttahida Qaumi Movement MNA Tayyab Hussain’s constituentcy.
The minister blamed previous governments for today’s electricity shortage. “Their preference for only private investment contributed to what our government is confronting now,” he said, giving the example of the Karachi Electric Supply Company. After privatisation it failed, according to him, to institute the promised upgrade. However, that philosophy of promoting private investment at the cost of the public has changed. The government was now apportioning enough funds for new power-generation projects, said the minister.
On another note, he said that the government was only pursuing those projects under Wapda’s Vision 2025 plan that were acceptable to all stakeholders. “We want to avoid controversies,” the minister said, while replying to a question about the inclusion of the Greater Thall Canal in Wapda’s vision 2025 scheme.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 21st, 2011.
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