No end to power cuts till Dec '09

“A rise of Rs 172b in the debts to power generation and oil marketing companies was witnessed due to provision of subsidy on power and non-increase in the tariffs by the previous govt,” Raja Pervaiz reiterated.

He said several small hydropower projects, having total capacity of 50,000 MW are in the pipeline, stressing that President Asif Ali Zardari had also directed the authorities concerned to work mainly on hydropower projects on war footing. He said the government would also start constructing other dams for which experts were being consulted at the highest level with a view to increasing hydropower generation, and it would prove to be a major breakthrough with respect to power crisis.

About new power projects he pointed out that those would definitely taken up sometime to generate power to their full capacity.