Solar power project: ‘PML-N will steer the country out of the dark’

Solar park should start producing 10MW before Ramazan: Shahbaz.

BAHAWALPUR:

Through the inauguration of South Asia’s largest solar park project on Friday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has proved that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz will steer the country out of the dark, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said on Friday.

He was addressing a ceremony at the Islamia University Bahawalpur after the inauguration of the Quaid-i-Azam Solar Power Project in Cholistan.

The chief minister said the solar power project will provide sufficient electricity for the country for 25 years. There would be no fuel cost involved as the project only required sunlight and would produce almost 1,000 megawatts, ushering in a new era of development and prosperity and providing employment to thousands, he said.

“Today is a historic day as the prime minister has laid the foundation stone for the Quaid-i-Azam Solar Power Park’s 100 megawatt project [in the first phase]...the prime minister has done what none of his predecessors have managed to do,” the chief minister said.

The sand and sunlight of the Cholistan desert were no less valuable than oil or gas, he said. The PML-N had promised the people that it would steer Pakistan out of the energy crisis...the solar project was a vital link in implementing those promises, he said.

Sharif said the previous governments had done nothing to provide respite from the energy crisis, plunging the country into darkness while the agricultural and industrial sectors suffered irreparable losses. Hundreds of labourers became unemployed during the last five years as the leaders kept going in circles without arriving at a solution, he said, adding that schemes like the rental power project had been used to loot the treasury, Sharif said.

If the former government had only looked towards the country’s deserts to produce electricity, the nation would not have had to suffer rampant load shedding, he said.

The chief minister said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had inaugurated a 660-megawatt project in Karachi a few days earlier and another 660-megawatt project would be launched at Port Qasim, Karachi, in a few days. A 1,320-megawatt project would be inaugurated in Sahiwal shortly afterwards, he added.

“The month of Ramazan is upon us...we want this solar park project to produce at least 10 megawatt by then so that uninterrupted power supply can be ensured for Bahawalpur and adjoining areas,” Sharif said.

He said the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and the Pakistan Awami Tehreek’s protests went against the collective interest of the 180 million people of Pakistan.

He said the PML-N’s election promises would be fulfilled at all cost.

“We will not rest until we make Pakistan the country that the Quaid and Iqbal wanted.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 10^th, 2014.