KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday said that any decision regarding electricity by any committee or ministry other than the Council of Common Interests (CCI) is illegal and unconstitutional, therefore, all the letters issued by Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) and others must be withdrawn.
He said this while talking to Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Energy Shahzad Qasim at CM House. The chief minister said that unilateral and arbitrary decision of CCoE has created an alarming situation adversely affecting provincial interest.
He added that electricity appears at Entry No.4, Part-II, Schedule IV in the federal legislative list of the constitution and CCI is the only constitutional forum to decide such policy issues. “Any policy decision by CCoE on electricity is a clear transgression and infringement into the domain of CCI,” he said.
He said that CCoE has unilaterally directed to reduce the life of solar and wind projects from 20 to 15 years. The CCoE has also imposed a selective embargo on the processing of ongoing small hydro, wind and solar projects. He urged the Special assistant of the prime minister to continue all the Renewable Energy (RE) projects possessing LOIs under RE policy 2006. Elaborating RE policy 2006 the chief minister said that it provided lucrative fiscal and monetary incentives to investors.
“It [the policy] offers attractive returns on equity of 17 per cent (in US dollars) and the power purchaser is responsible for providing interconnection to the transmission lines. Wheeling of electricity is allowed and the policy allows net metering and billing and facilitation to the projects to obtain carbon credits,” he said and added, “I would suggest that CCoE and ECC should not take any decision regarding electricity in future because CCI is the right forum.”
Shah said that if the RE projects and tariffs as low as under five cents were not allowed to develop, the public exchequer would continue to bleed by expensive energy and forex outflows on fuel purchase.
At this, Shahzad Qasim, an energy expert, said that if 1000 MW RE power project were installed then the government would be able to save Rs14 billion in forex every year. “Therefore, we have to focus on the production of RE projects,” he said.
The chief minister said that Sindh has 60km long and 80km wide wind corridor coastal belt. He added that Sindh is known as the Energy Hub of Pakistan because it has the capacity to produce 55,000 MW wind energy in Thatta, 10 GW solar energy (average 5.5 kWh/m2/day), 130 MW Hydro (low head and Run of the River), 1,000 MW Bagasse Cogeneration, 500 MW water energy (Karachi produces 11,000 MT garbage daily), 550 MW Geothermal. “The federal government is requested to approve the stuck up RE projects at its end so that work could be started on the projects and in this more private companies would be attracted,” he said.
The prime minister’s special assistant assured the chief minister of his support and congratulated him on nearing completion of Thar Coal Mining and Power Project. “It was a difficult task but Murad Ali Shah made it possible with his commitment,” he said.
