PM expresses extreme anger at increase in loadshedding

 Orders identification of responsible

ISLAMABAD: As the peak days of summer are approaching and the holy month of Ramazan is four weeks away, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has initiated dealing with the menace of power loadshedding personally and asked for constitution of a dedicated team to monitor the system.

He expressed extreme anger at the increasing loadshedding and ordered identification of those responsible.

The prime minister has also asked for fixing responsibility for inadequate planning in power management. The prime minister chaired the cabinet committee on energy (CCE) on Friday here at the Prime Minister’s House, which was fourth consecutive huddle in less than a month on similar subject where the overall situation of power demand and supply was discussed thoroughly. 

Nawaz Sharif was visibly annoyed over complaints pertaining to loadshedding and expressed displeasure over the  management of power supply system. He specifically asked for determination of responsibility of the sudden adverse development. He said the anticipated planning has not been exercised by the relevant ministries and their organisations, for which responsibility must be fixed forthwith. The prime minister said that everyone in the administration understands that it was the responsibility of the government to provide relief to the masses as he has been fighting it out right from the day one.

Nawaz directed Secretary Water and Power Yousaf Nasim Khokhar to set up a dedicated team for hourly monitoring of the power supply situation and also sought monitoring report of power transmission and distribution system on weekly basis. The prime minister asked the officials concerned to keep him posted about the overall situation. He directed Secretary to PM Fawad Hasan Fawad, Secretary Finance Tariq Bajwa and Yousaf Nasim to formulate and submit a line of action for resolution of issues related to non-operational independent power producers (IPPs) and present a report within two days. He directed the Ministry of Petroleum and the Ministry of Water and Power to work out a balanced conversion plan of power generation plants from furnace oil to re-gasified liquid natural gas (RLNG) and coal and present the plan in next meeting of the CCE. 

The secretary Water and Power, who assumed the office early this month, briefed the meeting on availability and utilisation of idle IPPs and captive power plants. He also briefed on issues pertaining to upfront tariff by NEPRA and load management plan for the summer. He updated the meeting about the supply and told the participants that power generation amounting to 866MW had been restored to the system in April and further 400MW would be added by mid of May 2017. Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif informed the meeting that power system constraints resolution programme would be completed by December 2017.

Minister for Finance Senator Ishaq Dar, who returned from the United States earlier in the day, briefed the meeting on his meeting with president World Bank regarding funding of solar power projects in Pakistan. 

The meeting was attended by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Minister for Petroleum Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal, Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif, State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, Special Assistant to PM for Foreign Affairs Syed Tariq Fatemi, Federal Secretary for Petroleum and Natural Resources Sikandar Sultan Raja, Chairman WAPDA Lieutenant General (R) Muzamil Hussain and senior officials. 

It is pertinent to mention that in the recent past, the Ministry of Water and Power developed soar relations with IPPs when they called the sovereign guarantees saying that the government owes to pay Rs48 billion and in toto, the government need to pay Rs254 billion and to this effect, IPPs gave advertisements on front pages of national dailies. This irked the top mandarins of the ministry who threatened to take legal actions against IPPs. This wrangling between the ministry and IPPs led to closure of some IPPs and some kept on running but stayed underutilised. This triggered massive decrease in electricity generation in the month of April at a time when temperatures suddenly swooped upward and hydro generation was touching the lowest ebb on account of huge reduction in water flows both in Mangla and Terbela dams.

Chashma Nuclear Power Plant-1 of 325MW is still closed and will come on stream in the first week of May. In addition, PakGen -- an IPP -- is still non-operational and idle. However, Nandipur is currently generating 144MW electricity as its one unit is operational and others are in the process of being converted to gas. However, in the month of May, Nandipur power plant will start generating 500MW electricity.

The second reason behind the huge loadshedding in the month of April was told that many units of 2,400MW were shut down in one go in the name of annual maintenance which was a fault decision. The top officials say that closure of units for maintenance should have been exercised in phase-wise manner in winter season when the demand was not at higher side. The prime minister has ordered probe for huge loadshedding in April and to this effect inquiry is underway.