ISLAMABAD: The government conceded on Tuesday it could not ensure 100 per cent uninterrupted power supply to residential consumers during Sehr, Iftar and Taraveeh due to system constraints and asked the Sindh government to immediately clear Rs60 billion arrears causing trouble to distribution companies.

“With our best efforts and hard work, 80-85 per cent rural and 90-95 per cent urban areas are now free from loadshedding at Sehr, Iftar and Taraveeh,” claimed Abid Sher Ali, the State Minister for Water and Power, at a news conference with Secretary Muhammad Younas Dagha.

The chief executive officers of all distribution companies, who were taken on board through videoconferencing, claimed to have ended load-shedding in three critical timings of the day during Ramazan.

All of them one after the other, however, conceded power supply problems of varying degrees when journalists started asking about specific areas. Most of the problems were attributed to “system constraints”, heavy rains, thunderstorms, security problems, heavy load requirement etc.

Mr Sher Ali said that many areas where domestic consumers were not getting electricity for prolonged periods were those on the mix feeders with industrial consumers. “When there was no load-shedding for industry over the past few months, these domestic consumers also enjoyed uninterrupted supplies but were unfortunately facing problems now because of residential-industry mix feeders,” he said.

He said the number of areas with system constraints had been reduced from 700 to 100 in a period of one year through induction of 58 new feeders, upgradation of 50 plus others and replacement of transformers. He said that a mafia of transformer manufacturers had monopolised the transformer industry and taken stay order from courts which we have been able to vacate and now procuring new transfers at Rs300,000-350,000 when they used to charge Rs600,000-700,000 per piece.

Centre admits it cannot ensure 100pc electricity supply to residential consumers

Mr Sher Ali asserted that the load-shedding for domestic consumers had in fact been reduced from 6-8 hours before Ramazan to 4-6 hours now through diversion of electricity from industry.

He said that the sizzling temperatures and start of air conditioners at once throughout the country in mosques had suddenly increased electricity demand soaring by 8,500MW at peak hours, thus increasing the overall demand in the initial days of Ramazan soaring to 22,000MW.

Normally, he said, peak demand could go up to 17,000MW and then start coming down after 9pm but this peak was now going beyond because of huge consumptions in mosques for Taraveeh. He said that more than one million ACs had been sold over the last few months.

Secretary Younas Dagha said it would be unrealistic to claim there was no problem at all anywhere given the old transmission system and more than 650,000 transformers which could trip anytime and replacement could take six-seven hours but claimed there was no unscheduled load-shedding. He said 100 per cent uninterrupted supply was not possible in the given circumstances.

He said some transformers also tripped due to heavy load. He said Balochistan was getting only 450MW last year due to system constraints, but it was now getting 700MW.

Fesco representative said there was no problem in his jurisdiction and no complaint at all, but conceded problems in couple of areas like Toba Tek Sindh etc when a journalist pointed prolonged breakdown.

Chief Executive of Iesco conceded problems at Ghauri Town, Iqbal Town, Range Road, Gulzar-i-Quaid, Gulshan Johar, Pakistan Town and Media Town but then said most of these faults were being removed now.

Similar reports were also confirmed at Lahore, Gujranwala, Multan, Hyderabad Electric Supply Companies.

Responding to a question, the minister said that KP chief minister had demanded 1,400MW and the centre was now providing 1,457MW and yet problems still exist. He said the chief minister had now provided land for a few grid stations at Swabi and Nowshera despite receiving payments for land compensation.

Separately, Federal Minister for Water and Power Khwaja Muhammad Asif accused the Sindh government of creating problems by withholding Rs60 billion even though 65 per cent of the amount had been reconciled.

Published in Dawn, June 24th, 2015

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