Upset by power outages, Sharif calls for fixing responsibility

islamabad — Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday expressed displeasure over the long-hour load-shedding in the country and said responsibility must be fixed for inadequate planning in power management.

“Anticipated planning has not been exercised by relevant ministries and their organisations, for which responsibility must be fixed,” the prime minister said while chairing a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy, the fourth meeting during the current month, here at the PM House.

Sharif said it was the responsibility of the government to provide relief to the masses.

He directed the water and power secretary to constitute a dedicated team for hourly monitoring of the power supply situation and also sought a report of power transmission and distribution system on a weekly basis.

He directed the secretary water and power, secretary finance and secretary to PM to present a line of action for the resolution of issues related to non-operational Independent Power Producers (IPPs) and present a report in two days.

The prime minister directed the ministry of petroleum and ministry of water and power to prepare a plan to switch power plants which use furnace oil to run on re-gasified Liquid Natural Gas (RLNG) and coal to generate electricity and present the plan in the next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy.

The water and power secretary briefed the meeting on the availability and utilisation of idle IPPs and captive power plants. He also briefed the meeting on issues pertaining to up-front tariff by Nepra and the load management plan for the summer.

He informed the meeting that power generation amounting to 866MW had been restored to the system in April and further 400MW would be added by mid of May 2017.

The water and power minister informed the meeting that a power system constraints resolution programme would be completed by December 2017. The finance minister briefed the meeting on his meeting with the World Bank president regarding funding of solar power projects in Pakistan.

The meeting was attended by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Maryam Aurangzeb, Special Assistant to PM Tariq Fatemi and senior officials. — APP