The Pakistani government is planning to build two new coal-fired power plants and transform two furnace oil or gas-fired plants to coal-fired facilities in an attempt to control the rising prices of electricity in the country.

According to the budget documents released for the fiscal year 2013-14, the total cost of the projects will be around PKR252.23bn ($2.53bn), reported The Express Tribune.

The two new coal-fired power plants will be built each with 660MW capacity at a cost of PKR55.23bn ($559.9m).

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will support the new plants with a funding of PKR124.1bn ($1.2bn).

Pakistan will also transform furnace oil or gas-fired plants to coal-fired facilities for which ADB will provide a financial assistance of PKR77.6 ($786.8m).

The conversion project include units 1-6 of Muzaffargarh thermal power station with power generation capacity of 1,350MW, and units 1-2 of Jamshoro thermal power station with 450MW capacity.

The government has also reserved PKR2.7bn ($27.3m) for the plant conversion schemes.