KP asks Nepra to find causes of loadshedding

ISLAMABAD: Khyber Paktunkhuwa (PK) government has sought intervention of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to get the province out of power outages and urged the regulator to pinpoint the causes of loadshedding triggering violent demonstrations, top sources told The News.

Nepra has recently sent its experts’ team to Karachi to find out the reasons of irritating long duration power outages in the jurisdiction of K Electric. Nepra’s team is currently in the process to firm up its findings about the causes of long duration of loadshedding which led to the standstill of routine life in business center of Pakistan.

The KP government has also asked the regulator to intervene and find out the causes of load shedding as the federal government is not listening to the provincial government.  The KP government says that against its share of 13.5 percent load (1300 MW), it is being given 700-800 MW with shortfall of 400-500 MW which is why Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) is bound to extend maximum loadshedding to the dwellers of the province which has triggered to the violent demonstration and many lives had lost apart from the damage to the installments of the Pesco.

“We want the identification of the issues that cause the power outages,” one of the top officials in KP government maintained. “Yes, we have got the request of the KP government asking for the intervention from Nepra to highlight the issues causing the surge in the load shedding in the holy month of Ramazan,” a senior official of the regulator confirmed.

The federal government is alleged to be involved in extending the load to KP much less than share of the province and the federal government is shy to give its full share knowing the fact that there are many feeders in KP which are showing losses over 50 percent and if the full share is given the electricity would go waste and in result the power sector will face more losses in the province.

The sources say that the KP government which is facing law and order situation on account of non-availability of electricity to the masses of the province wants Nepra to detect the cogent reasons of load shedding so that the government could take up the issues at high level with the central government as currently whenever, the KP government takes the stand, that gets politicised.

However, the sources in the federal government insist that the transmission and distribution system of Pesco is not updated enough to absorb its share and to this effect regulator has also issued the show cause notice to the top management for failure in upgrading its system.

According to top man of water and power, NTDC was to establish three grid stations in KP at different places to strengthen the transmission and distribution system enough to absorb its share of electricity, but it failed. However, the federal minister for water and power in a recent meeting held in the ministry had directed NTDC’s top management to upgrade the system of Pesco by December this year.