THE power load-shedding has assumed alarming proportions as many parts of the country are experiencing 12 hours of outages due to non-availability of required fuel for power generation and non-maintenance of some important power plants.
Media reports quoting officials of the Power Division say the less production of hydro power in the wake of no improvement in water flows into the system and no rain spell coupled with an increase in demand of electricity, because of surge in mercury, which has increased to 19,000MW at peak hours, have also aggravated the electricity availability crisis.
The country suffered hugely during the previous tenure of the PPP Government and initial years of PML(N) tenure due to long hours of power outage as no investment was made on power generation.
However, it was because of the focused efforts and hard work of the then PML(N) Government that the country was surplus in electricity generation when it left power in 2018.
It is known to all that a number of power projects completed under the early harvest programme of CPEC played a crucial role in eliminating the menace of load-shedding.
In this backdrop, it is intriguing that a country surplus in electricity generation should face load-shedding again due to mismanagement and inefficiency of those at the helm of affairs in the last Government.
What a shame that the country has an installed capacity of over 32,000 MW but it is unable to meet even peak demand of just 19,000 MW these days!
Isn’t it utter lack of vision that we couldn’t manage supply of gas, coal and oil to power plants and kept our eyes closed to the timely maintenance of faulty plants and as a result allowed the economic losses worth billions of rupees daily in terms of loss of production and business activities?
We hope the new Government would work on a war footing to provide relief to the people as demand would further soar with increase in mercury.
