ISLAMABAD: The United States (US) has refused to extend its $ 18.5
energy program to provide agriculture tube wells at subsidized rates to
Balochistan province due to non payment of electricity bills by farmers.
While giving briefing to media men on the occasion of
celebration of the replacement of the first 1200 inefficient pumps on
Wednesday, USAID representative John Pullinger said that the USAID Tube
well Efficiency Improvement Program (TWEIP) was one of six activities
under the U.S. Signature Energy Program that Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton announced in October 2009 to help alleviate Pakistan’s severe
power supply shortfall.
According to a press release, John
Pullinger said that USAID has started its program in Pakistan last year
in December from a pilot project in Multan. The USAID TWEIP programme
will help to save 45 Mega Watt electricity and so far it has saved 8
Mega Watt. The USAID has plan to replace roughly 7,000 tube wells and
added that by replacing tube well farmers were saving 20% to 25%
electricity.
He informed that currently tube wells were running on 36 per cent efficiency that will be increased to 60 per cent.
USAID
Mission Director Andrew Sisson said that TWEIP was one of the several
programs launched by the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to
assist Pakistan in addressing energy shortages in the country.
He
said that it is also part of the United States commitment to support
the efforts by the government and people of Pakistan to build a
stronger, more prosperous future for this country and much like
education fuels the minds of the people and enables them to build a
better future, energy is essential to the economic growth of the nation.
He said the United States energy sector assistance is being
delivered by his organization, the U.S. Agency for International
Development, or USAID is working with various Pakistani organizations on
various short and long-term projects.
“Recognizing the urgent
need of energy sector solutions, we are implementing several quick
impact projects: over the past year, we have helped the Government of
Pakistan complete Satpara and Gomal Zam dams”, he said adding that they
are also funding renovation of Tarbela hydropower plant as well as
maintenance and repairs at Guddu, Jamshoro, and Muzaffargarh thermal
plants. Together, these projects will save, restore, or add up to 900
megawatts of power generation capacity by early 2013.
He went on
to say that USAID was also working with the Ministry of Water and
Power, as well as Power Distribution companies to reduce energy
transmission losses, increase revenue, and improve the overall
management of the energy system. We believe that these changes will
contribute to the long-term sustainability of Pakistan’s energy sector.
“U.S. Government, through USAID, was sponsoring replacement of
several thousands of inefficient pumps that farmers use to extract
irrigation water. The 1,200 pumps they have replaced will save
approximately 8 Mega Watts of electricity each year an amount that takes
a small power plant to produce”, he said. It is worth mentioning the
program offers a 50% subsidy to farmers to replace their pump-sets. The
project is closely associated with the DISCOs (power distributions),
Farmer Groups, local trade associations, and 8 major Pakistani Pump
Suppliers (Certified to ISO Standard 9906 for cold water pumps). Online
