Others are all talk, PPP has delivered: Bilawal

THARPARKAR: Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Wednesday “others are all talk”, but the PPP actually delivered while inaugurating the Thar coal power project here, Geo News reported.

“This is Pakistan’s most successful project. This is Naya Thar. This is Naya Pakistan,” the PPP leader said, co-opting the ruling party’s oft-repeated slogan. “This is what is called ‘good governance’. This is what you call a ‘mega project’.” Bilawal said it was the country’s “most successful project” and his mother, the late Benazir Bhutto, had dreamed of providing electricity to Pakistan with Thar’s coal. He termed the Thar coal power plant a “pride for all of Pakistan” and said the entire country would benefit from the electricity generated by the plant.

Bilawal said he was proud to have inaugurated a project that his mother had laid the foundation for. He told the audience that it was the late prime minister who had first introduced the concept of public-private partnership in her 1993 manifesto.

He also announced that the Sindh government will provide free electricity to the residents of Islamkot and Thar once the project starts generating electricity. Bilawal further said a campus of the NED University of Engineering and Technology would be set up in Thar.

Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and PPP leaders, as well as Sindh cabinet members, were in attendance at the ceremony. “I just inaugurated Thar coal power plant. The highest man-made structure in Pakistan,” Bilawal tweeted earlier in the day.

The Thar coal power project has a capacity of generating 660 megawatts and consists of two power generation units of 330MW each. The project was completed under the CPEC flagship public-private partnership of Sindh government in 10 years. The Sindh government has given the sovereign guarantee of $700 million for this project.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz leader and former planning minister Ahsan Iqbal congratulated Bilawal for inaugurating the project and said: “Thar Coal project demonstrates the power of collaboration. PML-N federal govt, PPP Sindh govt & Engro — private sector worked as a team to make this CPEC dream come true.”