Faisalabad Chamber Of Commerce & Industry Welcomes WAPDA Chief

President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) Atif Munir Sheikh has welcomed the appointment of Lt Gen (retd) Sajjad Ghani as chairman Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and hoped that he would exploit his professional and administrative skills to fulfil the needs of irrigation water and generation of cheap hydel electricity for the industrial, agriculture and domestic purposes

FAISALABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 13th Aug, 2022 ) :President Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) Atif Munir Sheikh has welcomed the appointment of Lt Gen (retd) Sajjad Ghani as chairman Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and hoped that he would exploit his professional and administrative skills to fulfil the needs of irrigation water and generation of cheap hydel electricity for the industrial, agriculture and domestic purposes.

In a statement issued here on Saturday, he said that Pakistan had potential to generate 41,722Mw of cheap hydel electricity but it was only generating 9,406Mw through 22 hydel power houses in the country.

He said that Pakistan had to generate costly thermal power to meet its national needs by importing costly petroleum products or LNG. FCCI President said that in this connection new chairman WAPDA had to make concerted efforts by focusing on maximum generation by exploiting the available hydel resources. He hoped that full consideration would be given to the speedy completion of Diamer Basha Dam in addition to small hydel dams particularly in the Northern provinces.

He said that increased hydel generation was the only solution to cut down the overall electricity cost and facilitate the masses in addition to making our exportable surplus competitive in the international markets.

Atif Munir underlined the need to start work on Chiniot Dam to meet the irrigation needs of the region in addition to providing depleting resources of potable water. He further said that the world was exploiting alternate resources of energy instead of depending on fossil fuels as it was necessary to save the environment and contain alarming carbon emission. He pointed out solarisation and said that Punjab had the biggest irrigation system and we must exploit it to generate electricity by installing small turbines particularly in the perennial canals.

"Although irrigation system falls under the domain of provinces, WAPDA must take lead and install turbines which could be handed over to the local communities in the later phase", he added.Atif Munir also invited Lt Gen (retd) Sajjad Ghani to visit FCCI and discuss electricity and water-related issues with the local business community.