20000322

EU team

due in Multan

on 28th

MULTAN: A delegation of European Union (EU) ambassadors along with their wives, is due here on March 28 on a 2-day visit to Multan.

Mepco (Multan Electric Power Company) Chief Executive, Brig. Abbas Ali Khan told APP on Tuesday that a delegation of eight EU ambassadors and two envoys along with their wives will arrive here on March 28.

The delegation include ambassadors of Greece, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Sweden, Spain and Portugal, and Deputy High Commissioner of Great Britain and secretary, Italian Embassy.

The main purpose of the team's visit is to see the villages, electrified under the regional programme of village-electrification in the Punjab, Phase-II.

Under the project financed by the European Union at a cost of over Rs. 500 million, as many as 513 villages are to be electrified in South Punjab. Out of these, more than 300 have already been electrified.

On February 1-2, EU's representative Kurt Juul inspected the work in progress in Rahim Yar Khan, villages and termed the quality of the job to be 'excellent'.

The EU representative was so impressed by the exquisite accomplishment that he not only appreciated the electrification work, but decided to invite the ambassadors/envoys of the European Union to see for themselves the excellent job done by Mepco engineers.

The work is being supervised by Project Director (Construction) Imtiaz Hussain Qureshi.

The Mepco chief executive said that work on the rural electrification programme is in full swing and will be completed in June.

The sites of EU delegation's visit include the shrine of the Muslim saint Hazrat Bahauddin Zakariya, Sacred Heart Girls Hostel, St Mary's Convent and Central Cotton Research Institute.

The dignitaries will be feted at a dinner by Wapda Chairman, Lt. Gen. Rao Zulfikar Khan, at a local hotel on March 29.ÑAPP