Iranian Company Urges Pakistan to Clear Pending Payments Related to Transmission Line

An Iranian company has written a letter to Pakistan over the delay in payments for laying a 220 kV transmission line from Iran to Gwadar The company has written a letter to the government of Pakistan over the delay in payments of over Rs. 1 billion for laying the transmission line. Sources said that the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) awarded a contract for laying the transmission lines to the Iranian company Sunir for the import of an additional 100MW of power from Iran. The company initiated the spade works on the project well before the signing of amendment no 2 (a) of the contract on the direction of PM. Subsequently, this project was formally inaugurated jointly by the President of Iran and the PM of Pakistan on May 18, 2023. The transmission line is currently in operation. The company claimed that it completed the project work on July 13, 2023, whereas the deadline for the project was October 4, 2023. Sources said that NTDC has stopped payments of €5.299 million while an additional Rs. 36.1 million separately is yet to be paid. The company claimed that it has not been paid complete payments by NTDC mainly due to the reason that the revised PC-1 of the project has not been approved. The company said that it is always the prime duty of the sponsor of the project to complete such codal formalities well before the initiation of the project whereas €5.299 million plus Rs. 36.1 million are still to be paid by NTDC despite repeated requests in writings and numerous meetings. Resultantly, we are suffering financial constraints without any fault on our part, the company added. The company asked the government of Pakistan to take immediate steps for the release of the payment.