KARACHI, April 23: As power outages continued in the city on Monday, the Federal Minister for Water and Power, Liaquat Jatoi, conceded that despite additional 55 megawatts from the Water and Power Development Authority, there would be no let-up in load-shedding and power breakdowns.

The minister was talking to reporters after presiding over a joint meeting of Wapda and KESC officials on the power crisis in the metropolis on Monday. The

meeting was held a day before the prime minister’s meeting to discuss the growing power crisis in the country.

While he put up a confident face before the electronic media, the business community was not happy with the minister’s assurances and a delegation of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry has planned to take up the issue with the Sindh governor on Tuesday. The minister was seen to be protecting the KESC management and providing it the shelter it did not deserve, the business community maintained.

Also, the Organization of Small Traders and Cottage Industries held the KESC management responsible for load-shedding and demanded that the utility’s privatization be revoked.

They said that though the people of Karachi contributed towards 70 per cent of taxes, they were being treated in a shoddy manner. They demanded relief in taxes owing to losses incurred by them due to load-shedding and declared that if their demand was not accepted, they would observe a shutter-down strike on Friday.

Mr Jatoi promised 715 megawatts from Wapda to the KESC, 55 megawatts more than the existing supply of 660 megawatts, mainly during evening peak hours, that would reduce the duration of load-shedding, but the problem would persist as long as people did not conserve energy and prevented power theft.

Mr Jatoi hoped that by May 25, Unit Number 4 of the troubled 1260-megawatt Bin Qasim power plant would be reactivated and would provide 200 megawatts additional electricity. In addition he said the 80 megawatt Defence power plant would soon be operational. But, analysts said, the measures Mr Jatoi announced after the meeting were cosmetic, and apparently no solution was in sight.

The peak demand of 2250 megawatts was expected to go up to 2,600 megawatts and there was hardly any additional generation capacity, despite maximum output by Hub power plant, Gul Ahmad and Tapal.