KARACHI, May 4: The Karachi Electric Supply Corporation started getting an additional 100 megawatts on Wednesday to overcome the power shortage that is blamed for prolonged breakdowns in the city.

This was announced by the minister for water and power, Liaquat Jatoi, at a press conference on Wednesday.

He said: “At present, the Water and Power Development Authority gives the KESC 500 megawatts on a daily basis. From Wednesday onwards, the KESC will receive 575 megawatts from Wapda. Similarly, it will rehabilitate its own generation and distribution system in such a way as to get an additional 25 megawatts,” he explained.

When asked whether he agreed with the widely held view that the National Transmission and Distribution Company was responsible for the delay in the establishment of a long-awaited link between the KESC and Hubco, the power minister said: “I don’t want to apportion blame. But I am happy to report that 28 per cent of the work on the Hubco-KESC link is complete and it is expected to become functional by April 2006,” he hoped.

Mr Jatoi said Wapda was willing to give more electricity to the KESC than it currently did. “The Wapda network has an electricity surplus of 1,500 megawatts. But the reason why it cannot give more electricity to the KESC than it does at the moment is that all KESC transmission lines are overloaded. Power woes of Karachi will come to an end as soon as a fresh link is established between Wapda and the KESC,” he explained, adding that currently the KESC-Wapda link could not take more than 575 megawatts.

The power minister agreed with a questioner that KESC consumers had serious misgivings about the privatization of the KESC and said: “As far as the government is concerned, the privatization of the KESC is complete. Since the KESC sell-out does not particularly belong to my ministry, I cannot say anything with certainty, but I believe Kanuz al-Watan, the Saudi Arabian consortium which bought the KESC sometime back, was expected to pay up one of these days,” he said.

The power minister said the UAE government was willing to set up 360-megawatt generation plants in Pakistan at its own cost. “This is a gift from the UAE government. And the plants will be in place by December. If the KESC is not privatized by December, 240-megawatt generation plants would be established in Pakistan. Otherwise, the generation plants would contribute electricity to the Wapda network,” he explained.

Mr Jatoi said the KESC administration had decided to switch over to diesel-power generation plants in case a problem occurred in its units at the Bin Qasim power plant. “This decision has been taken to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electricity even during technical faults. While diesel is three times more expensive than natural gas which is employed to run the Bin Qasim plant, the government will absorb the rise in production cost and it will not be passed on to consumers,” he promised.

The power minister did not see eye to eye with a newsman who had suggested that under a law the KESC could close down commercial centres after 8pm in a bid to conserve electricity. “Karachi is known as a city of lights. Such a move would be misconstrued as an attempt to plunge the city into darkness. The KESC managing director, Brig Tariq Saddozai, informs me that commercial centres take up 10 to 15 megawatts of electricity.

“Actually the city’s power demand registers a sharp rise in the evening when domestic consumers switch on various electrical appliances, particularly air-conditioners. I would urge domestic consumers to conserve electricity,” he said.

Mr Jatoi said he had read reports of prolonged power breakdowns in the press and decided to sort out this problem as early as he could.

KESC managing director Brig Tariq Saddozai and KESC chairman Riaz Ahmed Khan also attended the press conference.