A solar panel displayed at a shop in Rawalpindi. PHOTO: WAQAS NAEEM
LAHORE:
The Punjab government is to provide a Rs50 million loan to the Qauid-i-Azam Solar Park so civil works can be initiated on the project, The Express Tribune has learnt.
The Finance Department is to release the funds to the company. The Qauid-i-Azam Solar Park is to be set up on 5,000 acres in Cholistan in Bahawalpur district. The park has been registered as a company with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan.
On October 9, the government posted Najam Ahmad Shah as chief executive officer of the QSP Company on deputation. The CEO, a Pakistan Administrative Services (PAS) officer in BS-19, is on a salary of around Rs800,000 a month.
The CEO had requested the Finance Department to provide a Rs200 million loan as seed money in order to enable the company to start work at the site. An official said that the work included land-levelling, tube-well installation, and the construction of buildings and roads. The company has already started making recruitments, he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 24th, 2013.
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The government should take great pains to read the contracts this time least the country is stuck in circular debt like the last IMF trap. After all except for the initial investment in PV panels their is only the daily cleaning costs which will not be performed by pretty maidens from France. Look at it in another way- where can you sell millions of solar panels only by greasing a few official palms. Solar panels are only good for domestic applications. Bewarned