KARACHI: The federal governments imported power generation machinery worth $5.80 billion during the last five years.
According to the figures of Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the cost of imported machinery is almost equal to the projected cost of 3,600 Megawatts’ capacity Kalabagh Dam (KBD). The total project cost of KBD at June 1998 price level, including contingencies, price escalation and interest during construction, was estimated as $ 5.70 billion.
It was estimated in 1998 that the dam would take 7 years for the first power unit to come in to operation, so, if KBD would have been built, Pakistan could saved the said amount, but the dam has been politicised by some factions of the political parties which is adversely impacting the trade deficit.
The imports of power-generating machines have jacked up by around 27% to $1.38 billion in fiscal year 2014-15 (FY15) as against $1.09 billion in FY14. The increase in import took place due to continuously power shortfall that is still hovering between 4,000 megawatts (MW) to 5,000 MW during the outgoing fiscal.
In the month of June, when the electricity demand doubled due to heatwave, Pakistani imported $171.82 million worth power-generating machinery which was 73% more if compared to the value of $102.92 million machinery imported in June 2014.
