LAHORE, March 19: The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) says that its deficit has gone up to 3,000 megawatts — about 25 per cent of the peak demand of 12,000MW — and announced that the duration of loadshedding will be increased from four to six hours a day across the country.

Blaming the shortfall on the worsening hydro-power situation, a Pepco official said that independent power producers (IPPs) and the company’s own thermal units were trying to ease the situation, otherwise the crisis would have been much worse.

There has been a decline of over 50 per cent in water availability in two main dams — some 32 per cent at Tarbela and 21 per cent at Mangla. The former has already hit the dead level and power generation has been reduced to the run of the river.

The inflow at Tarbela has also dropped, to a mere 22,100 cusecs. Though the inflow at Mangla, which is an early riser, has slightly improved, Punjab has restricted the outflow to 24,000 cusecs.

As a result, hydro-electric generation has dropped by 1,200MW, from 3,400MW last year to 2,200MW. This deficit had taken the overall shortfall of an unmanageable 3,000MW, he said. “The company can manage the deficit better through load-management as long as it remains below 2,000MW. It does not mean that below 2,000MW does not hurt the consumers, but it keeps the situation under control. Anything beyond 2,000MW starts hurting the consumers badly and takes things out of the company’s control.”

The IPPs which contributed around 4,800MW on Wednesday had been of great help, he said. It was possible only because the IPPs built up oil stocks and kept all generators in working condition. That was all the company could do at this stage. And not only the IPPs, but the company’s own thermal units have also been contributing to their limit. They have been consistently generating around 2,900MW for the past month and been instrumental in keeping the situation under control. But with the hydel-generation dropping to an abnormally low level, the thermal relief has lost its utility.

“The company, like all other public institutions, keeps offering technical excuses for the massive loadshedding, instead of finding solutions of the problem,” said an irritated consumer, Shabir Hussain of Gulberg.

Only a few days ago, Pepco officials were blaming the IPPs. When the latter started contributing their full share, it blamed reduced gas supplies. The company claimed on record that the demand-supply gap could be overcome if it started getting full gas supplies. Now with the onset of summer, when the problem of gas supply is not there, the company has found another excuse, the poor hydro-power situation.