ISLAMABAD: The Diamer-Bhasha power component remains part of Pakistan’s generation plans, the Power Division said Saturday, rejecting a report that the 4,500MW hydropower project had been cancelled.
The Ministry of Energy’s Power Division called the report “fake news”. It said the generation component remained a committed project in existing and future Indicative Generation Capacity Expansion Plan (IGCEP) documents.
The rebuttal followed an August 28 report by Brief. The publication cited what it described as an internal Economic Affairs Division document and alleged that authorities planned to prioritise the dam’s water-storage component while delaying the development of power-generation and transmission infrastructure.
Brief also alleged that independent power producers (IPPs) had influenced the decision. However, the Power Division rejected that claim as a “fake assumption” and said the present government had closed the previous model for establishing new IPPs.
Separately, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) continues to describe Diamer Bhasha as a 4,500MW hydropower project.
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In April, WAPDA said the dam would store 8.1 million acre-feet of water and generate about 18 billion electricity units annually.
WAPDA has also reported ongoing construction at the project, including work on power-intake infrastructure. The dam is being built on the Indus River near Chilas, along the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-Gilgit-Baltistan region.
