PESHAWAR, Nov 22 (APP): Caretaker Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Justice (R) Syed Arshad Hussain Shah, n order to make the province self-sufficient in hydel power generation, directed the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organization on Wednesday to devise an aggressive plan to complete its ongoing hydropower projects on fast track basis.
He also directed to initiate new feasible projects in the province with round the clock work on them, so that maximum hydropower could be generated and added to the grid in minimum possible time.
He instructed the authorities concerned to immediately appoint the chief executive officer of the newly established ‘Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Grid and Transmission Company’ so as to make it fully functional without any delay.
He also ordered to accelerate pace of work on the execution of already approved plan of PEDO for hydel power generation.
He was presiding over 14th meeting of the PEDO Policy Board at the Chief Minister’s House. Caretaker Provincial Minister for ST&IT Dr Najeeb Ullah, Advisor to the Chief Minister on Energy and Power Syed Sarfaraz Ali Shah, Additional Chief Secretary P&D Syed Imtiaz Hussain Shah, Secretary Energy and Power Nisar Ahmed, PEDO CEO Engineer Naeem Khan and other members of the Policy Board attended the meeting.
The chief minister said that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been blessed with abundant water resources; and a comprehensive strategy with fast track implementation plan was required to make the province self-sufficient in power generation by utilizing those resources to the maximum.
“We can not only provide affordable and environment-friendly electricity to our people but we can also create tremendous employment opportunities for them by providing additional electricity to local industries at relatively cheaper rates”, he said and added that the caretaker provincial government was fully committed to complete the public welfare projects on time.
The meeting was briefed about the draft of “Service Regulations” for PEDO CEO and Executive Committee’s members and decided that a committee headed by Advisor for Energy and Power would further deliberate the draft and submit it for final approval within the next two weeks.
The authorities concerned were also directed to formulate financial rules for PEDO as soon as possible.
The meeting was apprised of various aspects of the wheeling model for providing electricity to local industries.
The chief minister said that the wheeling model was of vital importance for providing uninterrupted electricity to industries on cheaper rates and directed the quarters concerned to speed up work on extending the facility to other industrial units in the province.
The issue of net hydel Profit and other various matters related to the Federation were also discussed in the meeting.