Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Tuesday said they had devised a plan to immediately convert all the Federal Government entities’ buildings to solar power by April 2023 to slash a huge chunk out of costly fuel import bill of the country hovering around $27 billion.
The Prime Minister said the procedures for converting government buildings to solar power should be fast-tracked, adding that the government had set April 2023 as the deadline for implementing the solarization plan.
Addressing a solarization conference, PM Shehbaz said under the plan, all the Federal Government ministries, departments, authorities, and their offshoots in the provinces would immediately shift to solar energy.
He added that it would be a model for the provincial governments as the Federal Government would not bear additional expenditures over the solarization process.
PM Shehbaz also urged all the relevant authorities and stakeholders to complete the required process by the end of April 2023 and meet the timeline.
“Consider it our social, political, religious, and national duty to implement it at the earliest,” he opined.
Solarization process to reduce import bill
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said with the urgent measures, and they would be able to produce 300 MW to 500MW of cheap electricity, thus reducing the billions of dollars in import bills each year.
The prime minister assured that the whole solarization process would be conducted through transparent bidding.
He also asked the provincial chief ministers to emulate the launched pattern of the Federal Government, introduce solar systems in their respective provinces, and assured his government’s complete assistance.
He added that the ongoing conflict had also surged gas prices and deteriorated its availability as the gas supply to Europe was disrupted.
PM Shehbaz said during the coronavirus pandemic, gas prices crashed to the lowest, and it was sold at around $2 per unit, the then government committed criminal negligence by not securing its import, and now the whole nation is facing the consequences.
The prime minister said that during former prime minister Nawaz Sharif’s tenure, a 15-year agreement for purchasing LNG at 13.2 percent of the Brent was reached with Qatar. Still, unfortunately, it was politicized by the subsequent government.
During the previous PML-N government, the prime minister said efforts were made to produce cheap hydel electricity, and land worth Rs100 billion was acquired to construct the Bhasha Dam. Still, those were long-term measures to generate affordable power in the country.
He said that under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, the PML-N government completed coal and gas-fired projects in 2015 to overcome 20 hours crippling electricity outages in the country.
