As summer approaches, there is a need to strengthen the power distribution and transmission system in all provinces including KP.
The recent nationwide power outage, which impacted industrial and domestic consumers in all provinces, including KP, has necessitated a complete overhaul of the power distribution and transmission system, as well as the acceleration of work on under-construction dam projects, in order to address the country’s economic and water woes.
As summer approaches, there is a need to strengthen the power distribution and transmission system in all provinces, including KP, as well as accelerate work on Mohmand, Diamir Bhasha, and Kurram Tangi, as well as other water reservoirs, to avoid future power outages similar to Tuesday’s.
“The recent power outage should serve as a wake-up call for all of us. It reflects the fact that our electricity transmission and generation system was overburdened and required significant investment after the former PTI government failed to upgrade it,” the former minister stated.
He stated that the flood-damaged power transmission lines and infrastructure, including electricity poles, in flood-affected areas, particularly in the northern districts of KP, including Swat and Kohistan, required special attention from the government.
Wajid claimed that the former PTI government did not address the issue of illegal power connections in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa nor did it complete the long-awaited Mohmand dam project, resulting in the province experiencing prolonged power outages today.
He claimed that the former PTI government built over 100 mini-micro-hydel power stations with the help of NGOs in northern KP that were either destroyed or damaged by last year’s summer floods due to its ill planning and wrong selection of sites, thus wasting huge financial resources. As a result, he said, the energy import bill had swelled to $27 billion, causing negative effects on the national economy and industrial production.
According to a PMLN KP spokesman, the recent nationwide power outage demonstrated that our power distribution and transmission system required complete overhauling, for which the NTDC (national transmission and distribution company) bears significant responsibility.
The Ministry of Energy (Power Division) and Wapda on Monday said that power supply had been completely restored across the country, including in KP, after quickly repairing technical faults apparently caused by a delay in synchronisation between Tarbela and Mangla power plants.
In addition to the current elected government laying the foundation for many grid stations and transmission systems worth Rs 80 billion in the last few months, he stated that the foundation for a mega grid station in Mansehra would soon be laid to ensure smooth transmission of electricity generated through Diamer Basha and other such mega projects to KP, especially to Hazara division.
“The country would be in complete darkness today if the former Prime Minister had not launched power generation and transmission projects, as well as laid the foundations for nuclear power plants K-2 and K-3 in Karachi and the HVDC Matiari-Lahore Transmission Line.
Meanwhile, Wapda officials stated that work on the Mohmand dam was restarted following last year’s flood devastation and that its diversion system would most likely be finished by the end of this year.
“Most of the damages caused to the diversion system by last summer’s flood were repaired, and construction work is currently underway on all 11 project sites,” the official said.
He described Mohmand Dam as a multi-purpose project that, when completed in 2026, would store 1.2 MAF of water, generate 800 MW of electricity, and help mitigate floods in Peshawar, Charsadda, and Nowshera.
Besides supplementing 160,000 acres of existing land, the Mohmand dam would irrigate 18,237 acres of new land in Mohmand and Charsadda, contribute 2.86 billion units of low-cost and environmentally friendly hydroelectricity per year to the national grid, and provide 300 million gallons of water per day to Peshawar for drinking purposes.
Work on the construction of a high voltage direct current (HVDC) converter station is underway in Nowshera district under CASA-1000 Project for transmission of 1300 megawatt environment-friendly electricity from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan via Afghanistan to Pakistan.
The project annual estimated benefits are estimated to be about Rs51.6 billion while Rs4.5 billion was allocated for confidence building measures (CBM) in the project area for socio-economic development of the local population.
Eighty percent of work on the Kurram Tangi dam Project‘s Stage-I, being constructed in the North Waziristan tribal district was completed and the remaining work is to be completed by end of this year. Former Prime Minister laid the foundation stone for the project on March 3, 2017. The PC-I of Shakotai dam has been approved and would be completed with an estimated cost of Rs2.1 billion in three years besides a potential to irrigate 5,757-acre of land.