Chitral town gets 2MW power plant

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa [K-P] government is working on a plan to build 350 micro-hydroelectric power projects to overcome the energy shortage and redress the problem of power cuts in the province on permanent basis.

The K-P Minister for Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs Mahmood Khan said this at the inaugural ceremony of a micro-power project in Chitral. The project is being built by the Sarhad Rural Support Programme [SRSP] at a cost of Rs340 million with the assistance of the provincial government has a generation capacity of two megawatt.



The run-of-the-river power plant will electrify around 3,000 homes in Chitral town. In line with the PTI-PML-N spat between K-P and the centre, Mahmood blamed the federal government for load-shedding.

“Our province is rich in natural resources, but unfortunately past rulers took no practical steps for the utilisation of these resources,” said Mahmood, who is also the PTI president for the Malakand region. He said that the PTI-led K-P government after coming into power had taken several steps for improving performance in the public health and education sector.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2017.