Govt utilising resources to generate power: Khawaja Asif

SIALKOT: Federal Minister for Defence and Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif on Sunday said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government was committed to cope with the energy crisis on priority.

Talking to APP, he said: "We are utilising all resources and channels for generating maximum energy to get rid of loadshedding at the earliest."

The minister said 21,000 megawatt electricity would be added to the national grid with the assistance of China and hopefully this task would be accomplished within next five to seven years. Apart from this, 28,000 megawatt electricity would also be added in the national grid with the support of Turkey, the World Bank and European countries, he added.

Khawaja Asif said: "We are already working on a strategy to overcome electricity loadshedding as long, medium and short term power generating plans would be undertaken for overcoming the crisis and the private sector would be encouraged under the programme."

"A special attention will be focused on long term projects for producing sufficient electricity to cater future needs of the country and these projects would be initiated with the assistance of donor agencies", he said.

Apart from this, he said several foreign countries had already shown keen interest in investing energy sector of Pakistan to benefit the people of the country.

Khawaja Asif said: "Pakistan is rich in natural resources which are feasible for initiating short and long term hydel power projects for power generation and hopefully work on these projects would be initiated in future."

The minister said attractive opportunities were available for the foreign investors in wind, solar and hydel power generating projects. "We are also motivating the foreign investors to avail the opportunities in hydel and solar sectors", he added.

Asif said the PML-N government was making adequate efforts for strengthening and stabilizing the industrial sector because the industrial sector was a backbone of the national economy as well as providing employment opportunities to thousands of workers across the country.