The power-starved people facing sweltering heat staged demonstrations across many cities of the country to protest no let up in power load shedding on Sunday as country’s power shortfall reached 8,500 megawatts (MW).

According to Director General (DG) Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Ijaz Qureshi ministries of Finance and Petroleum are also equally responsible along with his company for Power outages which triggered protests across the country.
National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) had already warned the government that if the current power crisis was not resolved, the power system would be rendered paralyzed in the next few days.
According to the official demand for power has reached to 18396MW against generation of 10421MW. Meanwhile, power generation through hyddel, thermal and IPPs remained 4006MW, 1080MW and 4835MW respectively. Power supply to KESC stood at 670MW.
Officials in the ministry of water and power told Online that Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has curtailed the fuel supply to power houses which lead country to un-announced power outages.
“Required fuel and gas were not being provided to power houses, therefore, the generation of electricity had reduced,” said the official, adding that Kot Addu Power Company (KAPCO) power plants of 876 megawatt are under forced outage due to shortage of fuel.
Official further said that 300 megawatt one unit of Hub Power Company(HUBCO), AEC Lapir 350megawatt, Saif power 210 megawatt, Saphir power 209megawatt, Orient power 213 megawatt and Halmore 207 megawatt are also under forced outage due to non availability of fuel, Oil stock position at all RFO operable plants is also critically low.
Energy experts termed increasing power outages situation a complete failure of the government by saying that earlier government should take concrete steps to control the energy giant of the country.
It is pertinent to mention here that owing to the gap between demand and supply of electricity urban areas in the country are being subjected to power cuts of up to 14 hours a day, while 20 hours of load shedding is being carried out in rural areas. People from different walks of life are facing problems due to hour’s long load shedding in scorching heat.