Chairman Wapda Tariq Hameed on Saturday announced a new plan of a 2-hour loadshedding in the urban and the rural areas of the country in 24 hours, from Monday, May 7. This announcement came after the government gave a load management plan from Monday.
Under the plan, electricity will be switched off after every 6 hours for half an hour in both rural and urban areas of the country while the shops will be closed after 8pm, said Wapda Chairman Tariq Hameed, talking to newsmen, here on Saturday.
He said that restaurants, medical stores, bakeries hotels, and corner shops would be exempted from this restriction and could remain open till late night. He said that farmers could also take the advantage of the Wapda offer for the utilisation of tube-well for irrigation purpose. Wapda would charge only 75 paisas per unit during 10pm to 6am, he added.
The chairman said that after the implementation on the new plan Wapda would be able to save 500 MW electricity. He said that the federal government had issued a notification to the provincial government to ensure the implementation of the schedule under the "Shop and Establishment Labour Act" from Monday (tomorrow).
He said that Wapda had produced more electricity as compared to the previous year but the consumption had also increased this year and people were purchasing more domestic appliances. For example, he said, according to facts and figures, 2.8 million air conditioners were sold this year while the figure was 2.2 million in the previous year, he pointed out.
He said that 0.75 million washing machines were sold this year and 0.6 million were sold in the previous year. In reply to a question he said that All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) offered to sell 400MW electricity to Wapda was not feasible because they were offering it at Rs 6.80 per unit. Wapda is already purchasing from various private companies at Rs 6.20 per unit.
However, the negotiations between Wapda and Aptma were going on, and a favourable outcome would be seen soon, he added. The chairman said that Wapda had invested Rs 28 billion on the transmission system and more development projects were in the pipeline.
He said that the markets and the shops in the Defence and in the cantonment area would not be exempted form the rules of shop closure at 8pm. When it was asked that all the restrictions and rules were applied on the common and the middle class and government offices and officers' residences were normally exempted form it, he said that the federal government had issued the notice to the provincial governments to reduce their electricity consumption.
The chairman said that 15000 villages would be provided electricity at the end of this year and approximately 400,000 people would get the benefit from it and only 150MW electricity would be sufficient for the new electrified villages. He said that 10 oil-based projects had been started which would be completed till 2009.