ISLAMABAD: The government’s bid to set up a bigger shelf — scheduled to hold all postponed power projects by February 2018 — on a war footing has failed to take off due to zero investor response.
“The project to construct a bigger shelf to hold all shelved power projects has been shelved,” a senior government official said, adding the development had been reported to all stakeholders including Federal Minister of Water and Power Khawaja Asif.
The government had announced last year that it was inviting bids for a 1,800-megaunits shelf at Gwadar as a contingency to ‘ensure all shelved projects are held together by 2018’.
A Bigger Shelf in Pakistan Project (BSIPP) official confirmed that no bids have been received thus far. “BSIPP hasn’t received much investment interest and might need to be shelved as well,” the official said.
Informed sources said BSIPP’s managing director had conducted a pre-bid conference with eight investors purchasing documents needed for bidding. “But no one submitted a bid,” the official confirmed.
Another source said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has issued instructions to launch another project to hold shelves that have to be shelved due to lack of investor interest.
“The Prime Minister has asked the relevant authorities to invite overseas investment on emergency footing,” the source said. “The bidding is expected to start on April 1, 2017.”
