- Abbasi says people, not anyone else, will make a decision in election
- PM visits 720mw Karot hydropower project; says energy top priority
KAHUTA: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi on Friday expressed his confidence that with an exceptional performance over the past five years in the government, the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) would win with a bigger margin in the 2018 general election than that of 2013 polls.
“Wherever you go, you will find development projects like motorways, roads, highways, power and gas projects, schools, hospitals etc initiated by our government and have been completed or were near completion,” he said while speaking at a public gathering here.
Prime Minister Abbasi said that the development work carried out during the tenure of the present government had no precedent in the country’s history. He said that the PML-N had entered the election arena with the same spirit. “It is the people who make a decision [in the election] and not anyone else,” he said.
He said that the continuity of democracy was a must for the progress of the country and welfare and prosperity of its people. He said that it was only the PML-N and the leadership of former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, who served the country and made it sovereign.
He was pretty confident that as they had served the country and strengthened its economy, the decision of the masses in the July 2018 election would lead to the victory of PML-N. “Against whom we are confronted with politically today, they are not doing the politics of decency,” he said, adding that politics of blame game would not succeed.
He said that only the politics of decency would prevail which he said they were following. The prime minister said that the PML-N government had fulfilled all the promises made with the area people and the journey of progress would continue.
Referring to the area of Kahuta, which was his constituency, he said that it was an area of martyrs and Ghazis and the people of that area, particularly the youth were very brave and fearless who never turned their back. He said that he started his political journey from that area and after the passage of 30 years, people loved him and the PML-N, and elected him frequently.
Earlier, Prime Minister Abbasi visited the Karot hydropower project, being constructed on the Jhelum River to add 720 megawatts to the national grid. The project is the fourth among the five cascade hydropower projects being developed along the Jhelum River. During a briefing by a representative of the Chinese firm, the prime minister was told that the project would be completed within 60 months.
Prime Minister Abbasi, who was accompanied by Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, said that the government would extend all possible assistance to the contractor for successful execution of the project. He said that it was the government’s top priority to meet the energy needs of the country.
He expressed satisfaction over the pace of the construction work on the project and said that the government would cooperate to cope with country’s energy requirements. The project’s installed capacity is 720mw with an average annual electricity output of 3206 GWh. Its structure layout includes a rock-fill dam, spillway, powerhouse, diversion tunnels, head race power tunnels and tailrace tunnel.
The project is being developed on build-own-operate-transfer basis with five years construction period and 30 years concession period. The Karot project, executed by the Karot Power Company (Pvt) Limited, has been listed as one of the prioritised projects under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
Once the project completes, the federal government would gain about Rs 1.5 billion in tax revenues over the five years of construction period. Furthermore, the governments of Punjab province and Azad Jammu Kashmir would get Rs 0.676 billion proceeds a year respectively in 30 years’ operation. The construction of the project has also provided employment to more than 2,000 people.
[…] Source: Google News […]
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