He said this while talking to Special Assistant of Prime Minister on Energy Shahzad Qasim at the CM House, here on Saturday. Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Shaikh, Principal Secretary to the CM Sajid Jamal Abro and Secretary Energy Musadiq Khan also attended the meeting.
Chief Minister said that unilateral and arbitrary decision of the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) had created an alarming situation affecting provincial interest adversely. He said electricity appears at Entry No4, Part-II, Schedule IV in the federal legislative list of the Constitution and Council of Common Interest (CCI) was only constitutional forum to decide such policy issues. He said any policy decision by the CCoE regarding electricity is a clear transgression and infringement against the CCI's domain.
Murad Shah said that CCoE has unilaterally directed to reduce life of solar and wind projects from 20 to 15 years. He said the CCoE also imposed selective embargo on processing of ongoing small hydro, wind and solar projects. He urged the PM's Special Assistant to ensure that all the renewable energy (RE) projects possessing LOIs under RE policy 2006 should continue. He said the RE policy 2006 provided a lucrative fiscal and monetary incentives to investors. "It offers attractive returns on equity of 17 percent (in US dollars) and the power purchaser is responsible for providing interconnection to the transmission lines," he said, citing that the wheeling of electricity is allowed and the policy allows net metering and billing and facilitate the projects to obtain carbon credits.
He suggested that CCoE and ECC should not take any decision regarding electricity in future because CCI is the right forum. He said if the RE projects and tariffs as low as under-five cents were not allowed to develop, the public exchequer would continue to bleed by expensive energy and forex outflows on fuel purchase. At this, Shahzad Qasim who is also an energy expert, said that if 1000MW RE power project were installed, the government would be able to save Rs14 billion in forex every year; therefore, "we have to focus on the production of RE projects."
The chief minister said that the province of Sindh has 60 km long and 80 km wide wind corridor on the coastal belt. He said Sindh is known as energy hub of Pakistan because it has the capacity to produce 55000MW wind energy in Thatta, 10GW solar energy (average 5.5kWh/m2/day), 130MW Hydro (low head and run of the river), 1000MW Bagasse Cogeneration, 500 MW water energy (Karachi produces 11,000MT garbage daily), 550MW Geothermal.
Chief Minister requested the federal government to approve the RE projects that remain stuck at its end so that work could begin on the projects and in this more private companies would be attracted.
Prime Minister's Special Assistant Shahzad Qasim assured the chief minister of his support and congratulated him on almost completion of Thar Coalmining and Power project. "It was a difficult task but Murad Ali Shah with his commitment made it possible," he said.