National Security College delegation briefed on Water, Power Sectors

National Security College delegation briefed on Water, Power Sectors

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Lahore – October 16, 2017: A delegation of National Security and War Course of National Security College, Islamabad headed by Rear Admiral Zain Zulfiqar today visited WAPDA House and attended briefings on the water and power sectors of the country.

WAPDA Member (Finance) Muhammad Ikram Khan, Member (Power) Muhammad Arshad Chaudhry, Member (Water) Syed Riaz Ali Shah, PSO to Chairman WAPDA Brigadier Akhtar Abbas Janjua (Retd) and other senior officers of WAPDA were also present on the occasion.

WAPDA Advisor (Daimer Basha Dam) Dr. Izhar-ul-Haq and PEPCO General Manager (Revenue and Commercial Operation) Engineer Muhammad Saleem briefed the delegation about water and power sectors respectively.

During the briefing about water sector, the delegation was apprised that the cumulative storage capacity of the major water reservoirs including Mangla and Tarbela has decreased by 25 percent because of the natural phenomenon of sedimentation. As many as 29 MAF of water flows downstream of Kotri Barrage every year on the average from 1976 to 2017. This necessitates increase in water storage capacity of Pakistan by constructing new dams. The delegation was briefed that Pakistan has an identified potential of 60,000 MW hydel generation, which needs to be harnessed to its maximum for injecting low cost hydel electricity in the national grid to meet the requirement of electricity and stabilize electricity tariff in the country.

In another briefing on power sector, the delegation was informed about power sector restructuring and reforms, challenges and opportunities faced by PEPCO and future plans. The delegation was informed of the 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 (Finance) and National Security College delegation head exchanged souvenirs as memento to the visit.