The government of Azad Kashmir intends to sell power to many parts of Pakistan once it provides electricity to all of its areas by the end 2014, says Yaseen. PHOTO: FILE
Deputy Prime Minister of Azad Kashmir Chaudhry Muhammad Yaseen has invited private investors from different cities of Pakistan, especially Karachi, to invest in small and medium size hydropower projects in Azad Kashmir.
Speaking to media persons at the Karachi Press Club, Yaseen said that Azad Kashmir has the potential to produce over 10,000 MegaWatts (MW) of electricity from hydro projects but due to financial constraints, the government cannot start these projects.
Yaseen said that his government desires that more private investors come to Azad Kashmir to join hands with the government. He especially urged Karachi based investors to take interest in the hydropower projects for which the government of Azad Kashmir is ready to assist them with one-window operations.
He said that the government of Azad Kashmir is working on different hydropower projects with the help of private sector, and many of these projects are being built on Public Private Partnership (PPP). He also said that the feasibility study for twelve projects with production capacities ranging from 3MW to 132MW has already been completed.
There are ten 50MW hydropower projects on which work has already been started and that they would soon start producing power, he added.
Yaseen also said that there are also many raw sites with huge potential to produce hydropower in the Azad Kashmir. Apart from the sites where feasibility study has already been completed, there are 17 raw sites with a combined hydropower potential of 1,960MW of power that have not caught the investors’ eye, he added.
The average per unit electricity cost from these hydropower projects is just Rs7 per unit, which is attractive enough for private investors to come and invest in Azad Kashmir, he said. The government of Azad Kashmir intends to sell power to many parts of Pakistan once it provides electricity to all of its areas by the end 2014, he added.
According to the list of the projects that Yaseen shared with media, many of the investors are local while some are joint ventures of Pakistan and Chinese companies.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 22nd 2013.
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