ISLAMABAD: The government suspended on Friday two top officials of the national grid system after a preliminary inquiry held them responsible for last week’s nationwide power breakdown.

Zafaryab Khan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Water and Power, confirmed that the managing director of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC), Tahir Mahmood, and general manager of the National Power Control Centre (NPCC), Chaudhry Mohammad Saleem, had been suspended with the approval of the prime minister.

He said the ministry had sent the suspension orders to the board of directors of the NTDC with the directive to undertake a formal inquiry into the matter

and name their temporary replacements and, in the meantime, complete the process for permanent induction of NTDC’s managing director.

Advertisements seeking applications for the post have already been issued by the board of directors.

The prime minister had ordered an inquiry into the Jan 24 blackout and sought a report within 48 hours. The ministry deputed Amjad A. Khan, managing director of the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak), for the job.

Informed sources said that in the inquiry report Amjad Khan held the bosses of the national grid responsible for failing to prevent the disaster. According to him, a small transmission line of 220KV should not have caused such a catastrophic crisis. It was responsibility of NTDC and NPCC to take effective measures to isolate the affected area from the national grid to avert a countrywide breakdown but the bosses failed to perform their duties, leading to 7-20 hours shutdown in different parts of the country.

The sources said that three earlier breakdowns over the past few weeks also had led to similar blackouts in major parts of the country. They were triggered by problems in the major transmission line — 500KV line — while the latest one affected far more areas than the previous incidents and had originated from a smaller line.

The Nespak chief reportedly pointed out that although the steps taken for the recovery of the transmission system were better the team had completely failed to take effective prevention measures. He held the NTDC bosses also responsible for their failure to construct the line from 125km Uch power plant to Sibbi for evacuation of additional load and a portion of Shikarpur to Uch Power Plant for stabilisation of national grid. He had pointed out this shortfall to the prime minister before the April 2014 inauguration of the Uch-II Power plant.

An official of the power ministry declined to rule out internal intrigues for the removal of the NTDC chief on the report of the Nespak chief. He agreed that in a case of Neelum-Jhelum power project transmission line which ended up in courts, the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) was asked to look into the matter and fix responsibility.

After an inquiry, the PPRA asked the NTDC managing director to take up the matter with the NTDC board of directors to proceed against the Nespak chief. The NTDC chief did not yet take the matter to the board for weeks.

The power ministry had reported last week that the 220KV transmission line of NTDC had been blown up by terrorists on Jan 24.

The NTDC and NPCC have been run by officers on the basis of acting charge for more than 20 months.

Published in Dawn January 31st, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play