Although State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali claimed on Wednesday that the Nandipur Power Plant is contributing 95 Megawatts to the national grid ever since its inauguration by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on May 31 this year, revelations by representatives of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) will leave the minister red-faced because according to these officials the Nandipur plant was shut down just after five days of operation as it was not feasible to run it at a record cost of Rs 42 per unit.
The NTDC officials made the disclosure at a public hearing conducted by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) the other day.
The hearing, presided over by NEPRA Vice Chairman Habibullah Khilji, was also informed that the Nandipur Power Project had not yet officially or legally achieved its commercial operation date (COD). The first unit of the plants to come online was run on diesel fuel for five days after its inauguration, but closed down for being too expensive. In these five days, the plant produced electricity at an average cost of Rs 42 per unit.
NTDC officials said the decision to bring the plant online was made by the government: NTDC and PEPCO had neither requested the operations, nor did they approve the premature generation.
The inauguration of the Guddu Thermal Power Station and Uch-II; the ground breaking of a 1320MW coal-fired plant at Port Qasim by a consortium of Qatari and Chinese companies, put together by former Ehtesab Bureau chief Saifur Rehman are other examples of the government’s rush to get things done quickly.
Prime Minister Sharif inaugurated the first 95MW plant of the controversial Nandipur Power Project on May 31. The project had been stalled under the PPP government amid allegations of graft, declared an “unforgivable sin” by the prime minister as the plant and related machinery remained stranded at the Karachi port for more than five years.
The project cost more than doubled to Rs 57 billion (instead of Rs 23 billion) and the nation suffered a loss of Rs 165 billion, according to Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who spearheaded the project’s revival.
The project will be able to generate 425MW on furnace oil, which can be upgraded to 525MW if natural gas is used as fuel. However, the plant will take another five months or so to achieve commercial operation status.
While the NTDC officials were blowing the whistle on the power plant, Minister Abid Sher Ali was dispelling ‘misconceptions’ about the project to a group of journalists in Nandipur.
Flanked by Punjab Law Minister Rana Mashhood Ahmad and Project Director Muhammad Mahmood at Nandipur, Abid Sher told reporters that the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leadership was lying (about the project) with the nation in Ramazan.
“Imran Khan is not criticising the PPP government which had delayed the project leading to enhanced cost – Rs 23 billion to Rs 57 billion. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif negotiated with the Chinese government and brought engineers back to undertake the project,” he said.
The minister claimed that one turbine of the project was operational and generating 95MW and that work on other turbines was underway and they would be operational by end of this year.