The Senate standing committee on power has recommended that Balochistan’s Gwadar be connected to the national grid as soon as possible.

A representative of the power division told the committee that they have still not been able to connect Gwadar to the national grid and that electricity supply to the coastal areas of Balochistan from Iran was disconnected after the heatwave in Iran.

The committee was informed on Thursday that Iran has stopped supplying 80 megawatts of electricity to Gwadar and other coastal areas of Balochistan. The total energy supplied to the area is 100MW.

Chinese companies are generating electricity in Gwadar with the help of big generators and, in order to provide 7.5MW of electricity to Gwadar, China has demanded furnace oil worth Rs5 million every day. However, doing so will raise the price of each electricity unit to Rs30, which is very expensive.

The committee has said that Gwadar should be connected to the national grid as soon as possible and ordered the power division to take steps to ensure this.