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Friday March 29, 2024

Loadshedding to end by March next year: Abid Sher

By our correspondents
March 29, 2017

LAHORE: Minister of State for Water and Power Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali said on Tuesday that there would be zero power loadshedding across Pakistan by March next year except for the areas where people do not pay their electricity bills and the power theft ratio is high.

The minister was briefing the media about power transmission and generation projects here at the WAPDA House, where the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) Managing Director Dr Fiaz Ahmad Chaudhry and GM (GSC-Grid System Construction) Wajahat Saeed Rana were also present. 

Abid Sher said that with swift completion of energy projects initiated by the incumbent government, loadshedding duration has substantially been reduced from 18 hours in 2013 to three hours currently.

This summer, he added, there would be three-hour power outages in urban and four hours in rural areas daily, and the government is striving to ensure zero or shortest duration of loadshedding in the upcoming Ramazan.

Abid Sher said the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government is all committed to enhancing overall electricity generation capacity by 13,000MW in its five-year term and so far it has added 4,100MW to the system. 

The minister said the previous governments had neither produced even a single unit of electricity nor laid new transmission lines. He said that in the 70 years history of Pakistan till 2013, the country's total peak-hour generation was recorded at 13,600MW, but the incumbent government would add 13,000MW to the system, thus doubling the total generation to 26,500MW.

Abid said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is fulfilling his promise of providing inexpensive and affordable electricity to the consumers of all categories by completing energy generation projects speedily through utilisation of all resources, hydel, gas, coal, wind, solar and biomass etc. 

The minister said three re-gassified liquefied natural gas (RLNG) based power projects of accumulative capacity of 3,600MW at Bhikki, Balloki and Haveli Bahadur Shah would be producing electricity with full capacity by April 2018, while Nandipur power project being converted on gas fuel would also be adding 525MW to the system till that date. He said 969MW Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project and 1,320MW Sahiwal coal power plant will also start adding electricity to the system. He said work on Dasu Dam, Munda Dam and Diamer-Bhasha Dam will start by the year-end. He said that the government is also focussing on improving transmission lines and grid stations across Pakistan.

Till 2018, he said the NTDC would complete installation of five new grid stations of 500-KV and stretching its transmission lines of 2,000 kilometres which would carry extra load of 7,000MVA. The company, he said, would also complete installation of 13 new 220KV grid stations and stretching of its transmission line of 1,600 kilometres carrying 11,000MVA load.

Abid said in April 2017, the prime minister would lay foundation stone of Mutyari-Lahore (Phase-I) transmission line project to be completed within two years. In the Phase-II, he said, Mutyari-Faisalabad line would be stretched. 

Abid said up to 70 percent system constraints have been removed and remaining 30 percent would be eliminated by the authorities concerned till May this year to avoid any tripping or blackouts. He said that circular debt had been reduced and contained to Rs320 billion at present from Rs550 billion in 2013, when the PML-N took over the government.

He said that the Sindh government had to pay outstanding dues of Rs60-70 billion to power companies, AJK Rs62 billion, Balochistan Rs146 billion and FATA Rs42 billion. He said the current amount of circular debt could be abolished if these dues are paid to the power companies.