LAHORE: Power Distribution Companies (Discos) have warned the Ministry of Water and Power of public protests if forced outages in addition to scheduled loadshedding persist in coming days across the country.

The Discos have suggested that the government increase the scheduled loadshedding hours and stop forced shutdown.

The Discos are currently observing a four to six hours scheduled loadshedding (four in urban and six in rural areas). In addition, they are implementing forced shutdowns on the direction of the National Power Control Centre — a department of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company Limited (NTDCL) — for at least six hours.

Thus, the companies are observing loadshedding (scheduled and unscheduled) for about 12 hours on a daily basis.

“It is really surprising that why is the government not ready to face the situation and explain it to the nation. It must tell the people about demand-supply gap,” says an official, who works at one of the Discos.

End to forced shutdown, increase in scheduled suspension proposed

Talking to Dawn, he says the only solution available with the government is to direct the ministry to increase loadshedding hours officially from six to eight or 10 hours keeping in view the shortfall.

Since the situation is gradually worsening, senior officials of various distribution companies have orally as well as in writing told the ministry to do so, he claims.

The official says Discos have also told the top officials of the power ministry that forced shutdowns in addition to scheduled loadshedding on the pretext of high line loss feeders is unjustified, as it annoys those who pay bills regularly.According to another Disco’s official, the daily reports on shortfall are not based on facts.

“On Saturday, the department had reportedly mentioned 1,3000MW supply against the demand of 18,000MW. But the actual situation is that total generation ranges between 10,000 and 11,000MW these days. And the demand touched 20,000MW in peak hours — particularly from Saturday night to Sunday evening,” he claims.

He says the current situation shows a shortfall of about 7,000MW and it may increase more if generation from power plants, which are either on scheduled outages or not being operated due to non-payment, is not added to the national grid.

On the other hand, the people have been facing forced outages. “Saturday night and the wee hours of Sunday were terrible as electricity supply had been off for many hours. I along with my family members spent most of the time on my house’s rooftop,” Shahid, a resident of Johar Town, said.

State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali was not available for comments despite repeated calls and text messages made by this reporter.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2017