The funds will be directly paid to PSO to increase fuel supplies to two major IPPs, whose generation had dropped from 2500MW to a meagre 500MW last week. —File Photo

ISLAMABAD: With electricity loadshedding snowballing into mass protests across the country, particularly in Punjab, a meeting presided over by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered on Monday an immediate payment of Rs11 billion to the state-run Pakistan State Oil to augment power generation. A senior government official told Dawn that the meeting had also agreed to focus on electricity conservation, including two weekly holidays and business closure earlier in the night, to curb power shortage.

An emergency meeting of the inter-ministerial committee on energy crisis, headed by Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, will be held on Tuesday to finalise its recommendations to resolve the issue of circular debt and energy shortages.

These include a 12-16 per cent increase in electricity tariff, sale of government papers to commercial banks and a loan from the Asian Development Bank to take care of Rs300 billion in outstanding bills.

A special meeting of the federal cabinet has tentatively been scheduled for Wednesday for vigorous implementation of conservation measures and for approval of recommendations by the Dr Shaikh-led committee. It will be attended by the four chief ministers and representatives Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

As the prime minister was chairing the “special emergency meeting on the energy shortfall” at PM’s House, protesters resorted to violent protests in major cities of the country, particularly in Punjab, causing damage to government properties, including offices and installations of power supply companies.

As if it were not enough, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif asked his party workers and parliamentarians to join public protests against loadshedding and register their gripe in and outside parliament.

According to officials, the finance ministry will immediately release Rs11 billion to the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco), which will be directly paid to the PSO to increase fuel supplies to two major IPPs — Hubco and Kapco — whose generation had dropped to a meagre 500MW last week from their combined production capacity of 2500MW.

The payments to PSO are expected to help restore maximum production from the two IPPs and increase their generation by about 2000MW. The production from Hubco, which had plummeted to a paltry 150MW last week, increased to 600MW on Monday after Pepco made some small payments to the PSO.

According to the officials, the meeting, presided over by the prime minister, was unanimous in adopting aggressive conservation measures, particularly two weekly holidays, closure of markets and business centres at 8pm and disconnection of power supplies to wedding halls after midnight.

Water and Power Minister Syed Naveed Qamar was asked to consult the provincial governments before the special cabinet meeting on Wednesday to get their nod on conservation measures, which could reduce electricity demand by 1000MW a day.

In view of the previous opposition from Punjab to two weekly holidays and early business closure, some federal ministers insisted on implementing the measures even if Punjab did not agree. Others, however, opposed such a step, saying Punjab was in the middle of worst shortfalls and street protests and a unilateral decision would not help achieve results and create more problems.

The meeting was informed that besides full capacity utilisation of Hubco and Kapco, the Chashma nuclear power plant, which had gone out of order two days ago because of technical faults, would resume production on Monday night.

Naveed Qamar said power generation would increase by about 2500MW within 36 hours after the release of payments to the PSO.

The meeting also decided to take a firm position on recovery of arrears from provincial governments and other public sector consumers. A letter will be sent on Tuesday to all provincial governments and public sector organisations asking them to clear their dues immediately or face disconnection.

As the firefighting exercise after the prime minister’s emergency meeting came into motion, Pepco said its total generation peaked to 10,885MW on Monday against a demand of 17,546MW, leaving a shortfall of 6,661MW in Wapda’s system.

It said the generation from hydropower stations increased to 4,257MW against its total capacity of 6,700MW. Wapda’s thermal station produced only 1,321MW against a capacity of over 4,800MW. The IPPs produced only 5,157MW against their capacity of about 6,800MW.

Water and power ministry officials, however, said the shortfall was much higher than that claimed by Pepco, putting the gap at 7,500MW if assessed on the basis of more than 14 hours of average loadshedding. They said an average shortfall of 500MW usually translated into one hour loadshedding, adding that there was no mechanism available with power companies to assess unmet electricity demand.