Iran power supply project may take five years

ISLAMABAD: Water and Power Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has said obtaining power supply from Iran can take four to five years.

Talking to a news channel on Tuesday, Ashraf said Pakistan wanted electricity from Iran and both the countries have signed two agreements in this connection, but laying a transmission line could take time. One of the agreements was for 1,000 megawatts of electricity, he said. “At present, Pakistan is getting 39MW of electricity from Iran for Gwadar,” he added.

He said to get 100MW transmission lines must be laid. Ashraf hoped that the said 100MW would become part of the national grid in 2011. He said that to get 1,000MW power supply from Iran, there was a need to construct 750 km long transmission lines. However, he said, it was presumed by the common man that Iran would supply electricity very soon or that the government did not want to get electricity from Iran. The government was very much interested, but the projects would take a long time to be operative, he stated.

Published in the Express Tribune, May 19th, 2010.