Government vows to end worst power outages

Pakistan’s power division has vowed to end the spell of worst power outages across Pakistan and is working to ensure “uninterrupted power supply during and after Eid holidays”.

The power division said that it had injected about 2,500MW additional electricity into the power system to help end frequent power cuts. The “load shedding has been brought to zero with effect from 5am on May 1,” said Power Minister Engineer Khurram Dastgir Khan.

The Sharif government blamed the previous government for not fixing technical faults and ordering LNG, diesel and furnace oil which led to the non-functioning of 27 power units with a combined generation capacity of above 7,000 megawatts.

Fuel shortages

The power minister has sought immediate payment of Rs329 billion to operationalise about 7,900MW plants, currently out of the system primarily due to fuel shortage. The minister said the power sector’s circular debt stood at Rs2.46 trillion and about 5,740MW power plants were out of the system due to fuel shortages while another 2,156MW were not available due to routine maintenance.

The prime minister approved requests of the power division for the diversion of natural gas from fertiliser plants and captive power plants of the industrial sector to run more power plants during Eid days.

During the last two weeks, people have experienced long power outages as temperatures in some parts of Pakistan soared above 48°C. The sweltering heat and power cuts during Ramadan made the almost 15-hour fasting even more challenging.