Pesco announces cut in outages after KP CM warning

PESHAWAR: The warning hurled by Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Ali Amin Gandapur has worked as the chief executive of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) on Thursday agreed on bringing a major reduction in the hours-long power outages in the province.

Pesco chief executive officer Akhtar Hameed Khan announced the decision in a meeting with the chief minister.

The chief minister directed all the deputy commissioners and district police officers to personally monitor the load-shedding duration in their respective grid stations, warning that they would lodge a first information report with the police against relevant executive engineers, if there was one-minute extra load-shedding.

A day earlier, Chief Minister Gandapur had taken notice of the unannounced power outages in the province and threatened to personally go and take over the Pesco headquarters in Peshawar and draft a schedule for power management and load-shedding. He had set Wednesday night as the deadline for the federal government and federal minister for power and energy to bring a considerable reduction in the power load-shedding, otherwise he would go and take over the Pesco headquarters. The chief minister stated that despite an unprecedented rise in temperatures, many areas in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were undergoing 22 hours of power loadshedding.

Chief Executive Pesco Akhtar Hameed Khan along with his staff held a detailed meeting with the chief minister and briefed him about the power distribution system, demand and supply of electricity in the province as well as power line losses.

The Pesco chief executive agreed with Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur on the new load-shedding schedule and decided to bring a major decline in the outages.

Those areas which previously underwent 22 hours of load-shedding would now experience 18 hours of outages as per the new schedule. Also, the Pesco chief agreed to reduce 18 hours-loadshedding to 14 hours in many areas of the province.

Ali Amin Gandapur expressed anger over the power load-shedding in the province, saying that per unit price of power had been increased from Rs16 to Rs65, but even then the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been subjected to 22-hour outages. He held the federal government and Pesco responsible for the power losses in the province, saying that neither the federal government nor Pesco had ever taken an interest in replacing the outdated power transmission line.