Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif Wednesday admitted electricity crisis in the country, saying some power plants of 2,200MW have been closed due to maintenance and there is a shortfall of 5,200MW in the system. "I admit my mistake of electricity crisis. The maintenance of some power plants generating 2,200MW of electricity should have been completed in March but now the process will be completed by the end of this month. 2,200MW electricity is out of the system due to closure of power plants," the minister said while responding to a calling attention notice moved by Abdul Sattar Bachani of PPPP in the National Assembly.
The minister said that current crisis would be overcome in the next 8 to 10 days. He said, "We will gradually overcome the electricity crisis while the forced load-shedding would be completely ended." "The consumers are facing up to 12 hours a day electricity load-shedding. We are trying our level best to overcome the electricity crisis. But I promise that the supply situation would gradually start improving from today (Thursday). A total of 6,400MW electricity will be added in the national grid system at the end of December of this year, which will bridge the gap between supply and demand," he said.
The minister said that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had never said that load-shedding would be ended during the current year, adding there is zero load- shedding to the industry and the country will get rid of electricity load-shedding in 2018.
He said that Nandipur power plant would start generating 525MW through gas in next month. He said that many projects including three power plants of LNG, Sahiwal coal power project, Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project and others would be completed either at the end of this year or in the beginning of the next year.
While responding to a question of Aijaz Jakhrani of PPPP about closing of three power feeders in Sindh, the minister said that it is policy of the government to close the power feeders where non-recovery is 70 per cent or above. He said that all power projects except Neelum-Jhelum project, which was started 15 years ago, were launched during the tenure of this government.
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