Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday took exception to erstwhile rulers for his or her lack of foresight and long-term approach, saying “election-to-election” planning of former leaders had put the state during a difficult position.
Addressing a ceremony after performing groundbreaking of Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project, the premier said an idea to create Bhasha dam was conceived in 1984 but it couldn’t be materialised. “Either they [former rulers] lacked vision or they thought of their five years of power and our nation suffered dearly in its wake.”
According to official documents, three power generating units each with 510 megawatts capacity would be installed at Tunnel 5 of Tarbela dam’s reservoir with a complete cost of $807 million.
The prime minister regretted that the electricity being produced by Pakistan was the most expensive within the world, saying “unfortunately the contracts we’ve signed bind us to make sure capacity payment, and as a result our people need to pay the worth of it.”
Premier Imran said the country could have generated power through hydropower resources, but it didn’t prefer to .
“Our industries are provided costly power and that they can’t compete within the world until we subsidise power to them,” noted Imran.
He said the core reason behind China’s success was its planning for the longer term . “And our election-to-election planning has pushed our nation to face the challenges we face today.”
The premier said the Tarbela 5th Extension Hydropower Project will increase the lifetime of Tarbela dam “because sediment may be a few miles faraway from the dam and therefore the tunnel will help fail .”
Similarly, he said, it had been important for Dasu and Diamer-Bhasha dams to be completed on time because silt flowing towards the dams will get slower and it’ll prolong these dams’ operational capacity.
“We have decided to create 10 dams in 10 years including Diamer-Bhasha and Dasu dams and these constructions will help water storage.”
He said the development of several dams had started and Mohmand dam are going to be completed by 2025 while Diamer-Bhasha dam was expected to be ready by 2028.
The PM reiterated that heating was an important issue faced by the planet at the instant , noting that a top scientist had released a report indicating rapid increase in world temperature.
Countries like Turkey, Greece, Russia and Italy are witnessing fires unlike any seen before, the premier added.
He said Jacobabad was declared the most well liked city within the world, and during this worrying scenario, “it’s the necessity of the hour that we generate electricity which shouldn’t exacerbate heating .”
