ISLAMABAD- The government Saturday has backed out from its commitment to end load shedding by December 2009 as Water and Power Minister Pervaiz Ashraf said that investors have gone slow on rental power projects owning to growing criticism. Thus the Minister implied that the power crisis would continue beyond December 2009. Investors are uncertain to invest in these projects and now the crisis was likely to continue till June 2010, he said. While talking to the media after attending meeting on Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB), the minister said that we were trying to get back investors for the completion of the project. Federal Minister said 2000 Megawatts electricity would be obtained from Independent Power Plants till December this year. It is worth mentioning here that the government gave hopes to the people for the last 18 months that load shedding would end in December 2009. Not only the federal ministers, but also President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani several times said that the load shedding problem would be resolved in December. However, on Saturday, federal minister for Water and Power backed out of the commitment of his government. Earlier, chairing the 83rd Board meeting of the Private Power & Infrastructure Board (PPIB), held on Saturday, the Federal Minister said that the most important task that the government has in hand today is to overcome the energy crisis prevailing in the country. This crisis has not only affected every day life of the people, but has badly affected the overall economy of the country he added. He further said it would be very difficult for us to move forward unless this challenge is addressed. The present government has adopted a multi pronged approach and is concentrating on the policy, supply/generation and demand side management. The meeting was attended by the Secretary Water and Power Shahid Rafi, Secretary Planning Commission Ashraf M. Hayat, Additional Secretary Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources Muhammad Ejaz Chaudhary, Member Federal Board of Revenue Zafar ul Majeed, and Managing Director PPIB Fayyaz Elahi, besides other senior government officials, and private members of the Board. On the occasion, the minister applauded the efforts of PPIB and all its members for their support to achieve the targets of the government. He advised that in order to be successful we not only need to encourage new investors but also provide out of the box support to projects in the pipeline so that they come online by the required timelines. The progress of all the power projects was reviewed. Managing Director PPIB gave a briefing on the status of power projects under process, based on actual site visits of the PPIB/ WPPO teams, on which the board expressed satisfaction. The Minister formed an inter-ministerial committee to look into the policy of oil logistics for all future power plants.