Load shedding would be decreased to 6 hours in urban areas: Khawaja Asif
26 January, 2015
Islamabad- Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif has said the entire power system disrupted by the sabotage activities will be restored by this evening. Khawaja Asif added that load shedding would be decreased to 6 hours in urban areas.
Addressing a news conference in Islamabad today about the supply situation of electricity, he said it is our utmost effort to ensure zero load-shedding to industrial in the next two to three days. Eight hours load shedding will be carried out in the rural and six hours in urban areas.
Khawaja Asif said steps have been taken to enhance security of power installations. An inquiry has also been ordered, into the power breakdown which will be submit its report within forty eight hours. He said the USAID and China State Grid have been requested for technical assistance, to avoid complete blackouts in future.
The Minister said hydel power generation is also gradually increasing after reopening of canals. He said the release of water from Tarbela and Mangla will bring six thousand megawatt of electricity to the system.
Khawaja Asif ruled out any power crisis due to shortage of oil. He said twelve cargoes have been booked through the Pakistan State Oil which will start arriving from January 27 or January 28. He said his ministry owes around 170 billion rupees to the PSO and we are trying to pay off the amount in installments.
Khawaja Asif said the federal government would not stop supplying addition power to K-Electric from the national grid, until a new agreement is reached with the company.
The minister said that the federal government’s agreement with K-Electric, which supplies electricity to Karachi, ended on Sunday midnight. Under the K-Electric gets 650 megawatt power from the national grid.
Asif said that the government would renegotiate the agreement, adding until then the situation would remain the same as the government would not stop supply of 650MW to the company. But he said under the new agreement, the government would ensure that there should be equitable sharing of power load shedding by every city in the country.
He said it is utmost effort of the government to ensure equitable load shedding from Karachi to Peshawar as per the directions of the Supreme Court. He pointed out the country is faced with the issue of power load shedding and it will take two to three years to address the issue. Load shedding is expected to end by summer of 2017.
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