KARACHI: The federal government has identified around 29,000 acres of land in coastal area of Thatta district in Sindh for setting up a wind power corridor there, President Asif Ali Zardari was informed in a meeting on Tuesday.
The president chaired separate meetings at the Bilawal House on wind energy, flood rehabilitation, Turkey-Pakistan cargo train and mobile telephony to the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) beneficiaries.
Briefing reporters after the meetings, Federal Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira and president’s spokesman Farhatullah Babar said the meeting on wind energy was informed that 23 companies had shown interest in investing in wind power projects in the country.
The USAID has agreed to build a 150MW wind power plant in the coastal areas of Sindh to augment power generation. The president said Pakistan offered promising opportunities for investment in new sources of energy, particularly in the development of wind and solar energy.
Emphasising greater utilisation of alternate energy, the president advised that all new houses being built in the rural areas of Sindh under Behan Benazir Basti Programme should be provided solar or wind power. The meeting was informed that the Gharo, Bandar and Jhimpir corridor, where the wind speed was over 7 metres per second at 60 metres height, could generate as much as 50,000MW of wind power.
The meeting on Turkey-Pakistan cargo train proposed that technical feasibility of the project had been completed and efforts were now afoot to involve the private sector to finance the project. In the meeting on flood rehabilitation and reconstruction in Sindh, it was revealed that 20 high-powered dewatering pumps had been supplied to four districts of the province, while another fifty pumps were being supplied to other districts to drain out floodwater.
In another meeting, the chairperson of the BISP, Farzana Raja, briefed the president on progress made on providing free of charge mobile telephone sets to the beneficiaries of the project.
