Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf on Sunday said load shedding would be exterminated completely from the country from February 2009 up to the advent of summer season. Talking to a private TV channel, he said the shortfall of 4,500MW has been narrowed upto 2,500 MW in last 24 hours due to prudent measures taken to cope with the situation.
Elaborating, he said, the independent power producers have been paid Rs 700 billion thus ensuring increased power generation from them. He said the situation was not as bad as being propagated. The shortfall has been narrowed upto 2,500 MW as compared to 4,200 MW during the same period last year.
Various short and long term measures are being contemplated to tackle the menace of load shedding in the country, he said and added that a Turkish company would start rental power generation from ship stationed in Karachi.
Kohala, Neelum-Jhelum hydro projects have already been started while Bhasha-Diamer dam projects would be initiated soon aiming to exterminate load shedding forever. Pervez Ashraf appealed to the customers to conserve energy in order to reduce the power deficits, thereby reducing load shedding.