ISLAMABAD, Aug 28: The government on Thursday asked power distribution companies to speed up recovery of their bills to cope with the financial crisis and reduce loadshedding during the month of Ramazan.

Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf held a meeting on Thursday with chief executives of Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) and its distribution companies (discos) on the power crisis and asked them to reduce loadshedding to six hours in urban areas and eight hours in rural areas.

He directed the companies to ensure that there was no loadshedding during Iftar and Sehr and take steps to increase generation and enhance efficiency by rectifying technical faults of power plants.

He asked Pepco and the Multan, Peshawar, Hyderabad and Quetta electric supply companies to speed up their recovery campaign on a war footing and steer the utilities out of the financial crisis. He said all current and outstanding amounts should be recovered by the end of September.

The meeting expressed concern over the power crisis and asked Pepco and the distribution companies to cope with the situation and work out a mechanism to minimise the misery of consumers.

The minister took serious notice of the unscheduled loadshedding and directed companies to follow a fore-announced schedule.

Separately, a cabinet committee on development of power generation plants cleared three projects of 1000MW capacity on a fast track basis to end loadshedding by the end of 2009.