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Power export to Kabul to be discussed

By Khalid Mustafa

ISLAMABAD: A team of the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) will leave for Afghanistan today (Sunday) to discuss the export of electricity to Afghanistan.

The survey team will enter into Afghanistan’s Khost region from Miran Shah and will examine the possibilities of laying transmission lines to export power.

WAPDA’s team comprises Chaudhry Ahmad Akhtar, director of Peshawar Electric Supply Corporation (PESCO), Iqbal Ali Shah, a senior engineer in PESCO, and Abdur Razzaq Cheema, chief engineer at the National Transmission Dispatch Company (NTDC).

WAPDA will lay transmission line from Miran Shah to Khost, sources said, and team of experts will finalise the modalities with Afghan authorities for the transmission of electricity.

A WAPDA official said Kabul would provide full security to the WAPDA team and escort them from Miran Shah to Khost.

He said WAPDA would also lay down 132 kilovolt transmission lines from the Landikotal grid to the nearby areas in Afghanistan.

Pakistan agreed to help develop the electricity distribution network in war-ravaged Afghanistan, but WAPDA had first sought an assurance of safety measures for its staff. The official said Afghanistan had agreed to provide safety to Pakistani citizen and “WAPDA agreed to go ahead with these projects”.

“Afghanistan offered these projects to Pakistan when President Pervez Musharraf visited Kabul in April 2002 along with members of his cabinet including Lt Gen (r) Zulfiqar Ali Khan who was the chairman of WAPDA at the time.”

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