Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has directed the energy department to expedite the work assigned to gas and electricity distribution companies so that the benefit of the government’s initiative trickles down to the villagers.
He passed the orders while presiding over a meeting to review village electrification and gasification here on Saturday. The meeting was attended by Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh, PSCM Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary Energy Musadiq Khan, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi and other relevant officers.
The meeting was informed that the criteria to undertake electrification of villages under ADP includes the village must have a population of 100 souls or above, the villages having maximum distance of four kilometer from existing 11 kv high tension line.
Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh told the meeting that an amount of Rs 11.2 billion from June 2008 to June 2018 for electrification of 8514 villages was allocated and out of them 7749 villages have been electrified so far while work on electrification of 765 villages is in progress.
The chief minister was told that HESCO has completed electrification of 4832 villages and yet to have completed the electrification of 466 villages on which work was in progress. SEPCO had to electrify 2967 villages, out of them it has completed work on 2669 and work on remaining 298 is in progress. The K-Electric was given the assignment of electrifying 248 villages and it has completed 247 while there was a land dispute on one scheme which was being resolved.
The chief minister directed Imtiaz Shaikh to have a meeting with power distribution companies and urge them to complete the work on priority basis. “It is surprising that the work on the remaining scheme was going on from the last one year- this must be stepped up so that they could be completed.
The chief minister was told that the SSGC was given Rs6.5 billion for gasification of 957 villages. The SSGC has gasified 845 villages and have stopped work on the remaining 116 schemes.
The chief minister took serious notice of stopping gasification work and directed Energy and Finance departments to have a meeting with SSGC authorities and reconcile the schemes and their expenditures within a week and report him.
Shah said that winter has started and the villagers were living without natural gas despite their government has made payment to SSGC for gasification. “This is unacceptable and must be reconciled within a week so that within next two months gasification work could be completed,” he said.
Minister Energy Imtiaz Shaikh told the chief minister that the federal government has issued a license to the provincial government to launch its grid company. He added that everything was ready to start company.
The chief minister directed department to provide him a detailed plan to operationalize the grid company and its business plan. “I want to give a completion package of solution to the people of Pakistan right from coal mining/wind power spade work to power generation and then transmission through provincial government’s Transmission and Dispatch Company and establishment of Grid Station from evacuation of produced power,” he said and added he has claiming that the solution national energy crisis lies with Sindh and I would prove it.
The minister assured the chair that he would present the business plan of the Grid Company in the next week.
