Efforts on to overcome power crisis: Qaim

KARACHI - Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah on Thursday admitted that country was facing electricity crisis and said the government was striving hard to overcome power outages, which was causing prolonged power outages.
He was responding to a point of order raised by a MQM legislator on the floor of Sindh Assembly in which he (legislator) had complained that the people of Karachi were facing longest ever 18-hour power breakdown.
Qaim said that since Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) was privatised during the previous regime, the incumbent government was bearing the mistake committed in the past.
“We do not even know on what terms and conditions the KESC was privatised. Now it is the responsibility of the government to help the people out of their miseries caused by power outages,” he added.
He pointed out that people in the interior of Sindh were facing longer power outages but they did not make noise. He said that President Asif Ali Zardari, during his recent visit to Karachi, took serious notice of power crisis and had warned the KESC administration to make investment in power generation agreed at the time of privatisation.
Qaim said the total electricity consumption of the metropolis stood at 2,400MW but the utility was facing the shortfall of 500MW for which the government had made arrangement from Wapda but the KESC had failed to pay for the electricity taken from Wapda.
He informed the House that last night he had made phone call to the MD KESC twice who was still sitting in his office. The MD informed the chief minister that due to thunderstorm, the supply system of Wapda had collapsed at Jamshoro as a result the Bin Qasim power plant from where the KESC gets electricity stopped functioning. Subsequently the Hub power plant also tripped which aggravated the situation further, he added.
He said that it was a huge power breakdown as the people of Hyderabad were also facing power outages since last night.
Tracing the past, he said that keeping in view the future electricity demands of the country, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto had envisaged for 8,000-megawatt power project that had to be set up in Kety Bandar, which was to generate 3,000 megawatt in first phase in three years, but the project did not materialise.
Qaim said that he had asked Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the then Minister for Water and Power that why they had scrapped the Kety Bandar power project, which benefited the country billions of rupees. Upon which, Chaudhry Nisar replied that country had enough electricity and that Rs4 per unit that was agreed with the PPP government was expensive.