MESSAGE BOARD
NEWSLINKS
US EDITION
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
ELECTIONS
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Rediff Shopping

Shop & gift from thousands of products!   Books     Music       Apparel   Jewellery   Flowers   More..      Safe Shopping

Pakistan refuses to sell electricity to India

Pakistan said on Monday that it could not sell electricity to India as it has no surplus energy.

"Keeping in view our own current requirement, we cannot provide electricity to India," the ministry of water and power said.

Ministry officials denied reports that some independent power producers (IPPs) had recently sought permission to export electricity to India.

"There has been no recent proposal received by the ministry in this respect," an official said. "In any case the country has no surplus energy."

The News, a Lahore newspaper, said some IPPs seeking to sell electricity to India had recently proposed to share 50 per cent of their profits with the state distribution network, Water and Power Development Authority.

The IPPs had identified the town of Dinanath on the India-Pakistan border as a possible receiving centre for Pakistani electricity, it said, adding that "the proposal was discussed at the highest government level and dropped subsequently".

The IPPs claimed that 1,000 megawatts of power were being wasted daily owing to lack of demand in the country, the newspaper said.

The government denied this, arguing that spare energy was not available all the year round as production drops during the dry season.

But a WAPDA official told the paper the idea was rejected for political rather than technical reasons.

It quoted the official as saying that the country's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, had stressed that "there would be no business as usual with India unless it agrees to sit with Pakistan and sort out the Kashmir issue".

Tell us what you think of this report