The Water and Power Minister, Gohar Ayub Khan, said here yesterday that though the matter had been discussed at the prime ministerial levels on more than one occasion in the recent past, an official suggestion from india in this regard was yet to come.

He said that the issue first came up when Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, met his Indian counterpart, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in Colombo on the sidelines of South-East Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit towards the end of July and then it once again came under discussion when the two leaders met in New York in September.

The Indian Power Minister R Kumaramangalam has said about a fortnight ago that the Indian Government has now set up a committee to work out the modalities for the purchase of power from Pakistan and finalise theterms and conditions.

Pakistan's power secretary had visited New Delhi to hold talks with his Indian counterpart on the issue of Wullar barrage/Tulbul navigation project, which was one of the six issues under discussions between the two countries as part of the composite dialogue process.

Khan said that Pakistan at present had 16,000 mw of generating capacity which would be increased by another nearly 2,000 mw of power within a couple of years and added that the country had a surplus of around 3,000 mw saleable power.

When asked that whether Pakistan would be able to offer internationally competitive price to India, Khan said, ``Let the offer come first''. Pakistani power sector has been under a cloud of controversy in the recent times when the 20-month Nawaz Sharif government asked most of the private power producers to re-negotiate the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) which had been finalised during the previous Benazir Bhutto Government.