07 October 2004	Thursday	21 Shaban 1425

LAHORE, Oct 6: Unannounced load shedding by the Water and Power Development Authority continues to hit consumers hard, especially in the rural areas of the country.

The authority, under intense political pressure from the federal government, has not formally announced a schedule for load shedding despite facing a shortfall of around 500mw due to worst drought in the country in the last 23 years.

To its credit, the authority had tried to take consumers into confidence on Sept 30 when a member (power) called a press conference and detailed the reasons and magnitude of the shortage.

He told newsmen that the authority was facing a shortfall of 2,400mw on the hydel head alone. On the other hand, most of the big independent power producers (IPPs) like Hubco were going through the maintenance schedule, he said.

Both these factors had left a gap of 500mw to 700mw in demand and supply of electricity which, he said, had necessitated four to five hours' load shedding in the country for at least 10 days before IPPs started returning to power generation.

Interestingly, water and power minister Liaquat Jatoi had ruled out the possibility of load shedding while talking to media men in Islamabad. He then dashed to Lahore to preside over a meeting of the authority to assess the situation.

On Oct 1, he told a press conference in Lahore that Wapda and the ministry had 'arranged' 500mw of power during the last night and there would be no load shedding in the country.

Flanked by the member (power), he said three small IPPs near Lahore (having a combined installed capacity of around 600mw) had agreed to postpone their maintenance schedule and were already supplying power to the national grid.

Sources in Wapda, however, claimed that the whole effort of the minister was aimed at gaining political mileage. The minister, they said, was well aware of the ground realities and the magnitude of the shortage, but he refused to take stock of those facts due to political expediencies. They added that he put pressure on Wapda to take back its earlier announcement after which the latter was left with the Hobson's choice.

Since then the distribution system of Wapda was adjusting the gap between demand and supply through frequent breakdowns and load shedding, they claimed. A director of the Pakistan Electricity Power Company claims: "Wapda, like a loyal government organization, is saving political government by transferring pressure on rural areas and supplying maximum power to more vocal urban population.

Not only drought and maintenance schedule of the IPPs are creating problems for Wapda, but weather also has its share." He said 11,000 tube wells in the country were working beyond their capacity due to water shortage. The ground realities had not changed with a statement from the minister, he insisted.