Agreement signed between Wapda & USAID for Mangla Dam Refurbishment

LAHORE: The $78 million Project Implementation Letter (PIL)-2 for Mangla Dam Refurbishment Project (MRP) was inked between Wapda and the USAID on Wednesday.

Muzammil Hussain, Chairman Lt General (retired) of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) and Jerry Bisson, Mission Director in Pakistan of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) signed the agreement on behalf of their particular associations.

According to details, the USAID funding will be spent to commence a variety of works of Package V-IX of the plan. PIL-1 of cost almost $72 million for MRP was signed between USAID and Wapda in 2014.

The Wapda press release briefed the details as follows, “The MRP, on its conclusion, will augment generation capacity of the existing Mangla Hydel Power Station from 1,000 megawatt (MW) to 1,310 MW, which confirms an augmentation of almost 310 MW. The renovation procedure is divided into 11 different packages which will be executed in a variety of phases. The generating units will be renovated by closing down one tunnel (two generating units) at a time. However, refurbishment of the first two units will be finished in year 2019, whereas refurbishment of all 10 generating units is projected to be proficient by year 2024.”

Furthermore, keeping in mind the maturity of these power generating equipment and guarantee related to ease of use of additional water, Wapda is executing MRP with a permitted PC-I cost of Rs 52.224 bn.

Also, USAID is supporting by granting $150 million, while the French Development Agency is presenting €90 million as loan. However, the balance amount is taken care by Wapda.