ISLAMABAD -  A parliamentary committee was yesterday informed that the government is taking various steps to construct 4500 MW Diamir Bhasha Dam from its own resources and several proposals are under consideration in this regard.

“Bhasha Dam is our necessity, therefore, we cannot wait for the ADB and World Bank to fund it, and the government is planning to finance it from its own resources,” Secretary Water and Power, Yunus Dhaga, expressed these views while briefing the meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Water and Power. The committee was presided over by its chairman Arshad Khan Laghari.

A comprehensive briefing made by the Alternative Energy Development Board on the projects under taken by the Board from 2013 to enhance the production of electricity in the country, their date of commencement, present status and expected date of completion, present status of development Projects/Schemes of National Transmission Dispatch Company (NTDC).

“Out of Rs 100 billion of PC-I Rs 56 billion have already been spent on the land acquisition,” Yunus Dhaga said. The technical work on the dam will be completed next year, he maintained.

Regarding solar tariff secretary water and power said that in 2014 the cost of per unit solar electricity was Rs 17 and now the government wants it to decrease it to Rs 9 per unit.

Abid Sher Ali, Minister for State Water and Power, briefly apprised the Committee about different power projects of hydel, solar, wind, coal etc, which were initiated by the present government to overcome the shortfall of the electricity. He said that there is no issue in the initiation of power projects and provision of funds by the federal government to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. “The federal government has already deposited the project funds in the provincial government account,” Abid Sher Ali said. It is the provincial government which is responsible for the delay in the execution of power projects, he said. The KP government in not taking adequate steps for the execution of the projects, he added.

The Committee directed the ministry to ensure the timely completion of the projects in order to overcome the shortfall of the electricity.

Managing Director NTDC, Fayyaz Ahmad Chaudhry, while briefing the committee said 50 new transmission projects were started during the past three years. For the new projects around 2000 kilometer of new transmission lines will be laid, he added. He said that by 2018 12000 MW will be added to the system. He said that NTDC is going to do work in three years what it has not done in the previous 40 years. He said that NTDC has not so many contractors to start work on all the production projects at the same time. Due to lack of capability, electricity generation in not being increased as par the demands of next three years, he said.

The AEDB CEO informed that currently work on 35 projects is underway. Similarly projects with the combined generation capacity of 295 MW are being executed under the CPEC umbrella projects. The first power project under CPEC will start generation next month, CEO, Alternative Board, informed.

He further said that energy projects with a combined generation capacity of 864 MW will be completed by the end of 2018.

Similarly, the Board is waiting for the Nepra decision on power tariff for 17 solar power projects, he maintained. Besides 1044 MW bagasse based electricity will be added to national grid and 140 MW has already been added, CEO maintained.

It was informed by MEPCO that Kissan Itehad has to pay Rs 6.1 billion for the electricity bills of 2015 and Rs 2.1 billion in 2016. The Committee directed the ministry to focus more on FATA and tribal areas by initiating different projects of electricity to eliminate the factor of load shedding.

MNAs Junaid Anwaar Chaudhry, Malik Ihtebar Khan, Rana Afzaal Hussain, Pir Muhammad Aslam Bodla, Rao Muhammad Amjal Khan, Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah, Malik Ghulam Rabbani Khar, Junaid Akbar, Salim Rehman, Syed Waseem Hussain, Maulana Muhammad Gohar Shah, Dr. Syed Ghazi Ghulab and Sahibzada Muhammad Yaqub attended the meeting, besides officials of the ministry.