RECORDER REPORT

PESHAWAR: KP caretaker Minister for Energy, Power and Public Health Engineering (PHE), Haji Fazal Elahi has expressed concern over additional and unjustified power load-shedding in the province and stressed need for construction of own transmission line of the province to bring an end to the monopoly of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO).

Presiding over a briefing regarding the Energy and Power Department on Friday, he said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has huge potential of energy, which besides arresting of unemployment could also be utilized for standing the economy of the province on strong footing.

During the meeting, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization (PEDO), Engineer Zainullah Shah, CEO, KPOGCL, Engineer Raziuddin, General Manager (GM) Hydel PEDO, Engineer Bahadar Shah and Deputy Secretary, Energy & Power Department, Javed Ali, officials of other attached departments gave detailed briefing regarding their organizations.

During the meeting it was told that Energy & Power department is only provincial department that earns a receipt of over Rs 49 billion per annum for the province, which is more than the total income of all other departments.

The department resolved energy, alternate energy, oil and gas other energy related problems of the consumers. PEDO, a subsidiary of the department is producing 124 megawatt electricity, which is generating billions of rupees revenue while construction work on six other hydel power projects was in progress in different districts. The projects will produce 253 megawatt electricity while work on 5 more solar energy projects with capacity of producing 203.5 megawatt is also in progress.

The meeting was further told that the province has the potential of producing 1.1 billion barrel oil and 16 trillion cubic natural gas, from whom the estimated revenue is Rs.100 billion per annum.

KP OGCL is working for exploration of oil and gas in the province, which had already started work on Lakki Block in the district Lakki, which will earn billions of rupees per annum for the provincial government.

Addressing the meeting, the caretaker Minister Fazal Elahi expressed satisfaction over the pace of work on the ongoing energy sector projects and directed the concerned authorities to cancel the contracts of all those projects, on which no progress has been made so far and their time of contract had expired.