Islamabad July 7 (TNS): Though authorities claimed to have awarded the contract for the 1200 megawatts (MW) liquefied natural gas power plant in Haveli Bahadur Shah — the first unit of 760 MW was inaugurated by Prime Minister on Friday — through international competitive bidding and under PPRA laws, the National Power Parks and the Water and Power Ministry ran the publicity advertisement in selected media outlets including a few newspapers and TV channels.
The millions of rupees publicity advertisement was churned out to only 10 newspapers and a few channels.
According to sources, the promoters of the advertisement selected the few selected media outlets against alleged kickbacks and bribes — meaning the receivers “would pay back the share” to the officials, who have given the advertisement.
In total disregard for the PPRA rules and a fair share of government advertisements, all other nationals and regional newspapers, TV channels and registered websites were completely ignored and denied the publicity and promotional advertisement.
The regional newspapers of Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkwa were completely ignored in terms of publicity and promotional advertisement.
After the inauguration of the project, a first of its kind in Pakistan, 760 MW of electricity was added to the national grid. The environment-friendly power plant, once fully functional, has the capacity to produce 1,230 MW through a Combined Cycle Power Plant fueled by the LNG.
The plant’s first unit was made operational in a record period of only 21 months including completion of civil works, construction of switchyard, cooling towers, fuel storage tanks and installation of gas turbine and generators.
According to the authorities, a saving of Rs57 billion had been achieved in the
The prime minister was informed that the award of the Engineering Procurement Contract (EPC) for the project led to one of the lowest EPC cost per megawatts resulting in an annual saving of Rs2 billion through optimum operations and management cost. The tariff of the electricity produced from the plant has been set at 6.42.
