PM should help resolve power crisis in Sindh: Zardari

KARACHI: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has written a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asking him to help resolve the issue of prolonged power outages in Sindh during the holy month of Ramazan.
Asif Ali Zardari, in the letter, has drawn PM Nawaz Sharif’s attention towards this serious matter, saying that Sindh faces the worst kind of loadshedding at present. He said several areas of the province bore about 20-hour power outages.The former president urged the premier to take personal notice of this situation and adopt measures to end the energy crisis in the hot weather.
Zardari feared that the situation might become worse in the province during and after Ramazan if the power crisis was not resolved. “I talked to you personally on this issue in a meeting on May 13 and later Sindh’s finance minister also discussed the same with the federal minister for water and power. The Sindh government had already paid arrears worth Rs2.4 billion to the centre while the federal minister had to resolve various matters including tariff, hydro and wind power plants pertaining to small power plants in Naudero and Dadu,” he said in his letter.
According to the provincial finance minister, he further stated, no progress had so far been made in this regard by the federal minister. If these matters were resolved 1,000MW would be generated by the end of 2016. When the Centre was asked by Sindh to determine the tariff for wind power plants, Nepra had offered very low rates which were rejected by the investors.
The payments to small power plants by Hesco and Sepco had badly affected the power generation in Sindh. As a result of this, small plants had started shutting down their operation and this would lead to loadshedding up to daily 20 hours in the province, which would be unbearable in this holy month.