ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has claimed that the government would overcome the energy crisis by early 2018 as 10,000 megawatts more electricity would be added to the national grid.
The minister said this, while addressing a ceremony organised by Old Hailians Association. He said that currently there is shortfall of about 5,000 MW whereas energy projects of 24,000 MW are under process and some of them will start generating 10,000MW by the end of year 2017 or early 2018.
The remaining projects of 14,000MW, he said, would start adding electricity to the system by 2020 which would help boost economic activity and industrialisation in the country.
The minister said two mega hydro power projects, Dasu and Diamir Bhasha dams, were also in progress, which would not only help overcome the energy crisis but also store water for irrigation purpose.
“Diamir Bhasha Dam will have the capacity of 1.3 trillion cubic feet water,” he added. Ishaq Dar said the government was also working on civil nuclear energy projects, which would add 1,000MW electricity to the system in next seven years. He said that before the year 2013, the country was on the verge of becoming a defaulter as the foreign exchange reserves had gone down to below $8billion and no international monetary institution was ready to lend money to it.
Dar said if Pakistan continued its journey on the road to progress which it had witnessed during previous two years, it would become the world’s 18th major economy in 17 years. He said that the PML-N was strictly implementing its manifesto announced during the 2013 general election, in which it had vowed to steer the country out of four crises.
