Dark and cold nights return

LAHORE: The menace of unannounced outages returned early Friday ahead of the annual canal closure when power supply is going to hit the lowest levels in the next couple of days. Marred by mismanagement, the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) failed to inform consumers about short supplies of power from national grid because of lowering of outflows from dams. A senior official of the power utility admitted that 3-16 hours outages had resumed in urban and rural areas of Lesco. He conceded the fact that relevant authorities had failed to share information about the outages with masses. Owing to annual canal closure, which will start from Monday (December 26), releases from dams is being curtailed. The lesser outflow means gradual reduction in power generation, said an official. He said that outflow from the Tarbela Dam on Indus River had been reduced to 20,000 cusecs from 40,000 cusecs recorded on December 19. Outflow from Mangla Dam on Jhelum River will be reduced from present level of 30,000 cusecs to 10,000 cusecs from Sunday (tomorrow), reducing hydropower generation significantly. In the last about a week, hydel generation dipped to 1,500mw on Friday from 3,300mw.

The official said that hydropower generation would reduce to lowest levels after December 25. After major drop in cheap hydropower generation, costly thermal power generation is now the only option to meet the demand of electricity.

On the other hand, industry has totally been exempted from power outages as per winter load management plan, which is yet to be communicated with stakeholders. Commercial consumers are presently bearing three-hour a day outages. Domestic consumers living in rural areas are facing four to 16 hours power cuts in contrast to 3-10 hours outages for domestic consumers living in urban areas.

The intensity of loadshedding would increase gradually following reduction in outflows from the dams. More worrying, Lesco has also increased frequency of planned shutdown on the pretext of completing repair work and for undertaking its so-called augmentation plan.

A Lesco official claimed that system augmentation was the need of the hour in anticipation of increase in power generation as a result of completion of new power projects. Meanwhile, as per desilting of canal plan 2016-17, 579 channels covering 3,727.235 canal miles length and excavating 1,180.879 lac cft earthworks will be done at expected cost of Rs408.088 million.

The desilting plan would be implemented in two phases as per canal closure schedule notified by Punjab Irrigation Department. Works on Mangla Command Canals are scheduled to start from 26th of December, 2016 to 13 January, 2017 whereas works on Tarbela command canals would be carried out from 13th of January to 30th of January, 2017.