Water and Power Secretary Yousaf Naseem Khokhar has failed to honour his commitment to the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) that in May there would be 6 and 8 hours load shedding in urban and rural areas, respectively. Well-informed sources told Business Recorder that on Monday generation was hovering around 15,000 MW whereas demand stood at 21,000 MW, showing a shortfall of 6,000 MW.
Information gathered from different sources reveal that urban areas experienced 8-10 hours outages depending on the location whereas rural areas faced 12-16 hours load shedding. Ministry of Water and Power, however, has claimed that despite severe heat wave in the country, all distribution companies managed electricity distribution across the country according to the announced schedule. Not a single megawatt of forced unscheduled load shedding was conducted in the entire country despite steep rise in demand.
According to the Ministry of Water and Power total demand recorded at 8 o clock was 20,800 MW against generation of 15,752 MW, showing a shortfall of 5,048 MW. The Ministry has also claimed that there was no unscheduled load shedding in any part of the country except those areas where recovery is low.
The Ministry further claimed that hydel generation was recorded at 4,275 MW, Gencos' 2,972 MW and IPPs 8,505 MW. A spokesman of the Water and Power Ministry said that Mandan plant came online due to which generation improved. He said all the Distribution companies are efficiently managing the load distribution. Special teams have been formed to conduct immediate operations for restoration of electricity in case of local faults. The DISCOS have announced their schedule accordingly at local level.
The complaint centers have been reinvigorated for immediate redressal of public complaints. The officials at the Ministry of Water and Power, NTDC, NPCC and all distribution companies are monitoring the electricity situation in the country closely.
Secretary Water and Power had claimed that in May there will be 6 hours load shedding in urban areas and 8 hours in rural areas respectively which has not been met by a wide margin.