PESHAWAR

The Government has expedited work on Ranolia Kohistan, Machi Mardan and Dararkhwar Swat with generation capacity of 55.6 megawatt power projects that would be completed by December 2015 to provide inexpensive electricity to consumers.
A senior official in Energy and Power Department KP told APP on Monday that three power projects including Machi Mardan with generation capacity of 2.6 MW and Ranolia Kohistan with 17 MW and Swat Dararkhwar with 36 MW capacity would be completed by December this year.
Work on Machi Mardan and Ranolia Kohistan has been already completed and would be inaugurated shortly, he said, adding work on Swat Darakhwar was in full swing and would be completed by end of this year. The completion of these projects would help provide inexpensive electricity besides irrigating thousands of acres of barren land in the province.
The Government, he said, is going top priority to energy and electricity sector and would spend more than Rs1.40billion on 39 energy projects in the upcoming fiscal year with focus on construction of Naran dam with power generation capacity of 188MW in district Manshera, construction of power stations of Gorband at Shangla district, Nand Bahar at Batagram, Mojigram Shagoor, Astar Rabooni, Arkari Gol at Chitral that would generate 206MW electricity upon completion.
Small power stations at Shringal Dir Upper, Patrak Barikot in Swat and Segokatch would also be constructed that would generate 171MW electricity. Furthermore, the Govt would construct 10microhydle power plants on canals besides setting up of a technical laboratory in the province.
The completion of these projects would give very positive impact on agriculture and industrial development besides overcoming on the problems of load shedding with great degree.