Pakistan is the first atomic power of the Islamic world and has attained this facility mainly as defense deterrent. Pakistan also holds the singular distinction of being the first Muslim country in the world to construct and operate civil nuclear power plants and utilizing civil nuclear technology for many years peaceful purposes of generating power for overcoming its lingering electricity load-shedding problem .
It is quite commendable to note that the country’s fifth nuclear power plant at Chashma, generating 340 megawatt, has been formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and is the fourth built as part of collaboration between PARC and China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC).
The prime minister, according to reports, quite righty appreciated PAEC for its performance and described Chashma IV as a step forward for the PAEC in achieving its target of adding as much as 8800 megawatt of power to the national grid by the year 2020.
Chashma IV project started injecting power into the national grid only after a period of 8 months since the operationalization of Chashma 3 and is termed as a matter of pride for the entire nation. Three nuclear power plants at Chashma are producing 900 megawatt of cheap electricity to the national grid. The prime minister also availed the opportunity to make the welcome announcement of ending electricity load shedding by the end of current year, completing all power projects by June 2018 and reiterated his government commitment of adding 10,000 megawatt of power to the national grid by the end of its term.
All this augurs for the people that the prime minister has quite categorically reiterated commitment of getting rid of menace of lingering electricity load shedding by end of 2017.
OSAMA BIN ASIM,
Rawalpindi, September 12.