The failure of Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) to manage and take necessary steps for power generation is the main cause of power outages in the country, said minister for water and power Liaquat Ali Jatoi on Wednesday.
Chairing an emergency meeting, the minister took a serious note of the outages of about 1100 MW of Wapda units which was causing shortage in power supply. He noted that generating units at Tarbela, Mangla, Chashma, Malakand, Multan, Guddu, Lahore and Jamshoro were down for various problems and Wapda has not taken timely diligence steps to bring these units to operation in time. The secretary water and power and other officials of the ministry and Irsa attended the meeting.
The Minister appreciated the role of Irsa and thanked for their co-operation to overcome the power constraints in the country in the best national interest.
The minister was briefed that Irsa was releasing 20,000 of cusecs of water from Tarbela till April 2 to avoid the problems of high flood situation in Kabul river and head restrictions at Chashma. After April 2, the Irsa had increased the discharges to 30,000 cusecs on the instructions of the Minister.
The Minister further reviewed the water situation and announced that once again Irsa in the best national interest has agreed to increase the quantum of releases from Tarbela to further increase power generation upto additional 500 MW. Irsa observed that Wapda who is the member of the Irsa Advisory Committee and Chairman Wapda who is ex-officio member of Irsa had not been attending the Irsa meetings.
Jatoi directed that in future Chairman Wapda or Member (Water) and Member (Power) must personally attend the meetings of Irsa Advisory Committee and discuss the water availability situation with the committee.
He also took serious notice of uncalled for misleading statements by Wapda in the press. He showed his serious concerns on Wapda's slackness and said he would hold a meeting today (Thursday) to address the issues.
Earlier, Chairman Irsa briefed the meeting that on April 3 there was high flood in Kabul river, therefore, releases from Tarbela could not be increased to avoid synchronisation of flood peaks. Simultaneously, Chashma Barrage water level was at 648 ft and there was no capacity to store the additional water.
He said additional releases might cause dangerous water level for Chashma as well as for Taunsa Barrage where rehabilitation work was in progress. He informed that today river Kabul is flowing normal and water releases from Tarbela may be increased further to overcome the Wapda crisis in the best national interest.-PR
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