Outages irk masses as shortfall now 3,000MW

LAHORE - Scorching heat coupled with prolonged power outages have made the lives of domestic as well as industrial consumers miserable, disrupting their daily routine and commercial activities, as electricity shortfall has crossed 3,000 megawatts.
The production of electricity from all sources, according to PEPCO, is 11,815 megawatts while its demand is on the rise owing to scorching heat. At present the electricity demand is 14,904 megawatt.
WAPDA generation plants are producing around 1500 to 1700 megawatt out of its total capacity of 4,000 megawatt.
Rental power plants are generating around 150 megawatt while IPPs are producing nearly 5,000 megawatt. The real blow comes from the hydel sector, which is presently producing just 1500 to 1700MW out of its entire capacity of 6,500 megawatt.
Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) officials say that extra water is being released for more power generation as a result water level is fastly approaching the dead level at Tarbela and as Mangla dam.
Pakistan Electric Power Company officials said that it was making all possible efforts to effectively balance the rising electricity demand and the generation resources.
The power plants are being organised to reach optimal generation capacity and the general public is being persuaded to exercise energy discipline.
On the other hand, the power consumers have complained that they were spending all the day and night without electricity.
They said, besides the habitual and routine loadshedding, LESCO continued to disconnect power supply to their areas on some other pretexts also, saying they could not perform their daily tasks without electricity.
Despite official announcement of just five-hour scheduled loadshedding, public found no respite in this regard and prolonged and unannounced power breakdowns continued to make the life of people miserable.
It was observed that every section of the society was in trouble due to unscheduled and unannounced prolonged loadshedding in City.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) has decried the six to eight hours suspension of electricity supply to Independent Feeders of Large Scale Manufacturing Units saying that it would hit the exports hard.
In a statement issued on Friday, the PIAF Vice Chairman Iqbal Baig Chugtai urged the Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf to help minimise the duration of suspension of electricity supply to Large Scale Manufacturing units that are major foreign exchange earners for the country.
The PIAF Vice Chairman said that there is a dire need to implement innovative ideas for the economic revival of the country at this point in time when the economic activity is already at its lowest ebb.
He said that the govt should intervene to avoid prolonged economic slow down that is bound to give birth to ills like poverty and unemployment.
Chugtai said that the Large Scale Manufacturing units need facilitation as they are supplementing the govt efforts aimed at economic prosperity but it seems that some circles are hell-bent to defame the govt.