ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf has said the government is focusing on hydel‚ coal‚ wind and solar power projects to meet the energy crisis and provide affordable electricity to the people.
Addressing a ceremony after visiting the Neelum Jhelum Hydel project site in Azad Kashmir on Monday‚ he said despite the financial crisis‚ the government is giving subsidy of 209 billion rupees in power sector in order to provide relief to the masses.
He said 3300MW of electricity has been added to the national grid during the last four and a half years.
As most of these projects are thermal‚ therefore electricity produced from them is expensive and the government is pressed to give subsidy on electricity. In order to generate cheap electricity‚ now focus has been laid on the hydel and other alternative resources.
He said he will soon visit the Thar coal project to see the progress on the project.
About the Neelum Jhelum project‚ Prime Minister said this run of the river project will help generate cheap electricity of 1000MW. Keeping in view the importance of this project to address the electricity crisis‚ he said he has directed to speed up the work on the project. He said the installation of tunnel boring machine at the site will help complete the project on fast track basis and instead of giving political color to the issue‚ we should make collective efforts to address the problem.