World Bank Vice President Martin Raiser, along with a four-member delegation, visited the Tarbela 5th Extension and Dasu Hydropower projects.

The bank is providing financial support for the construction of the projects, according to WAPDA spokesman on Saturday.

In the first leg, the WB vice president visited Tarbela 5th Extension hydropower project, being constructed on Tunnel No 5 of Tarbela Dam. He witnessed construction activities on main components. The project management apprised him about the progress on the power house, tail race culvert, canal and switch yard.

Tarbela 5th Extension has an installed power generation capacity of 1,530MW. After completion, the power generation capacity at Tarbela Dam will increase from 4,888MW to 6,418MW. The project will start generating electricity from 2025.

Later, Raiser also visited 1,410MW-Tarbela 4th Extension hydel power station, completed in 2018 with the financial assistance of the World Bank. He was informed during the visit that the Tarbela 4th Extension, since its completion, has provided 22.56 billion units to the national grid.

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In the second leg, the World Bank vice president flew to the under-construction Dasu project being constructed at River Indus upstream of Dasu town in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

He visited the power house, transformers cavern and the project colony to review construction activities. Dasu project team, in a briefing, informed him about the progress on main works of the project.

It was briefed that the river diversion system has been functioning satisfactorily since its completion early this year. Flushing tunnel is also complete, while excavation of the right bank bypass tunnel has recently been completed. Excavation of right and left abutment of the main dam, intake, power house, tailrace tunnel, surge chamber and transformers cavern is in progress.

The 4,320MW Dasu project will be completed in two stages. At present, Wapda is constructing Stage-I, with an installed generation capacity of 2,160MW, with annual energy generation of 12 billion units and is likely to be commissioned in 2026.

Wapda Chairman Eng Lt-Gen (retd) Sajjad Ghani and World Bank Executive Director Syed Tauqir Hussain Shah also accompanied the World Bank vice president.