PAF Air War College Delegation Briefed at WAPDA House about Water, Power Sectors

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Lahore – December 23, 2016: A delegation of PAF Air War College, Karachi headed by Air Commodore Hussain Ahmed Siddiqui, today visited WAPDA House. During the visit, the delegation was briefed about water and power sectors of the country. WAPDA Member (Power) Badr-ul-Munir Murtiza, acting Member (Water) Nasir Hanif and senior officers of WAPDA were also present on the occasion.

Briefing about the water sector, WAPDA Advisor (Diamer Basha Dam Project) Dr. Izhar-ul-Haq said that WAPDA is working on a number of projects for harnessing the water resources to meet the increasing requirement of water and electricity in the country. He apprised the delegation that WAPDA is constructing six hydropower projects with total generation capacity of 4792 megawatt (MW). Out of them, three projects of 2485 MW namely 969-MW Neelum Jhelum, 1410-MW Tarbela 4^th Extension and106-MW Golen Gol will be completed by the year 2018.

The delegation was also informed of water sector projects which are under construction including Kachhi Canal (Phase-I), Nai Gaj Dam and Kurram Tangi Dam. The delegation was told that seven other projects in water and hydropower sectors are ready for construction. Diamer Basha Dam with gross water storage capacity of 8.1 MAF and power generation capacity of 4500 MW, Bunji Hydropower Project with electricity generation capacity of 7100 MW and Mohmand Dam with gross water storage capacity of 1.2 MAF and power generation capacity of 800 MW are to name a few.

The delegation was also briefed about annual water flows and storage capacity, per capita availability of water, impact of climate change on water resources, water management challenges, water conservation and hydropower potential of the country.

In another briefing, PEPCO General Manager (Revenue and Commercial Operation) Muhammad Saleem informed the delegation about power sector reforms, electricity loadshedding, energy mix, distribution and transmission losses, billing and percentage of recovery and receivables. The delegation was also apprised of the Government’s efforts to overcome the electricity shortages in the country. They were also informed of new initiatives about generation expansion plan, system improvement, meter reading through mobile phones, automatic metering infrastructure and net metering etc.

Subsequent to the briefings, the queries about water and power sectors raised by the participants were responded to in a question-answer session. Later, WAPDA Member (Power) and PAF Air War College delegation head exchanged the souvenirs as memento to the visit.