Iran has reportedly shown willingness to supply as many as 2,200 MW of electricity to Pakistan at the rate of 6 to 7 cents per unit and government should consider this offer seriously and purchase power from Iran as a short-term measure to bridge the mounting power shortfall.

This was said by Zahid Maqbool, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) while chairing a meeting of ICCI Sub-Committee on Energy.

He said Iran has also reportedly offered to help Pakistan in building the power infrastructure along with arranging required funds for this purpose and stressed that government should not lose any viable chance to improve energy crisis.

Committee members said that government should also ask try to persuade USA to fast tract its energy support commitments to Pakistan and help the country in upgrading power generation from the Mangla and Tarbela dams along with installation of pledged thermal plants in different parts of the country.

They said all options should be utilized to overcome energy problem due to which many industrial units have either shut down their operations or cut down shifts due to which productivity has slowed down while thousands of workers have lost jobs.

Zahid Maqbool said various power generation schemes including power generation from Thar coal, construction of 32 big and small dams for producing hydro electricity and power generation from wind, waste and solar energy should be given top priority and work on all these schemes should be carried on war footing.

He also urged for urgent resolution of inter-corporate circular debt, which is the main cause of current power crisis. He said circular debt and power crisis are interlinked and all stakeholders including consumers, power generation and distribution companies and the government should make sincere efforts to resolve this issue in a comprehensive manner once for all so that industry and economy may not suffer on this account.