KARACHI: Wapda dispels impression about short supply
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, July 5: Dispelling the impression about short power supply from the national grid to Karachi, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) on Wednesday claimed that it had been supplying more than 700 megawatts to KESC on the directives of the Prime Minister.
"We have made a commitment to the KESC that we will supply them up to 700 megawatts and on Tuesday 715 MW was provided to KESC", Wapda8217fs member power Mohammad Anwar Khalid told Dawn in a telephonic conversation from Lahore."We do not have generation capability problem, but it is slight less than we were expecting." However, the capability would go up to the expectations in the days to come as water level in Tarbela and Mangla reservoirs is likely to rise, he added.
Mr Khalid said Wapda did not have power shortage as it had 200-250 MW surplus on Tuesday and it continuously supplied additional power to the corporation though the frequency of power supply varied from 660 MW to 715 MW a day.
About KESC's reported instance to switch on both the circuits from Jamshoro to KDA besides Hubco-Baldia link, he said: "The Jamshoro-KDA link is too old to be operated without maintenance.
“We have closed one circuit for maintenance and later we will close down the other circuit for the same purpose after opening the first one."
He said the KESC should not worry about the route of supply from Wapda. "We are committed to deliver up to 300 MW from Jamshoro-KDA link and another 400 MW from Hubco-Baldia link. They (KESC) are at the receiving end and they should not bother from which route they would get the electricity. They should only be interested in getting the required power and it should be left for us to decide as to from where we would give them 700 MW", he maintained.
The top brass of the KESC acknowledged that they were getting additional power supply of 100 MW from Wapda. According to the earlier agreement, the Wapda had initially committed to supply 550 MW power to the KESC, but it had been supplying up to 600 MW and it pledged to supply another 100 MW on the request of the federal government.
Chief Executive Officer of the KESC Frank Scherschmidt during a news conference on Monday, thanked the President, Prime Minister, and Sindh Governor for arranging an additional 100 MW power from Wapda.
"We have managed to obtain additional 100 MW of power from WAPDA. This will reduce our misery at least by a half", he added.
