20,000 megawatts Thar coal-based power by 2019: minister

Islamabad: Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Ahsan Ullah Khan said on Friday that power generation from the vast deposits of coal in Thar would help in overcoming the growing energy supply and demand gap in the country.

He said this while presiding over a meeting of Inter-Provincial Committee constituted by the Prime Minister to work out expeditious plan for international competitive bidding to produce 20,000 MW coal-based thermal power by 2019 from 175 billion tons coal resource of Thar.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Water and Power Tariq Hamid, Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr Muhammad Akram Sheikh, Secretaries of Ministries of Petroleum and Water and Power, Managing Director of Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB), Nepra Chairman, Wapda Managing Director and representatives of Sindh government.

The Minister said that the government was striving to exploit the indigenous energy resources to meet the growing needs of the country. He said that power generation from the vast deposits of coal in Thar was the need of the hour to overcome the growing energy supply and demand gap for sustaining rapid socio-economic growth in the country.

He said that utilisation of Thar coal resources by employing modern mining technology and skills would be a major step to ensure energy security and curtailing dependence on import of energy.