PESAHWAR, June 23: Minister of State for Water and Power Amir Muqam has said that flood water has hampered power generation at the Warsak power house, forcing the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) to resort to load-shedding in its bid to overcome the power shortage problem. He attributed the current load-shedding by Pesco to the decline in power generation at the Warsak power house.

“Because of flood in River Kabul, the Warsak power house is not working at its full capacity,” the minister said at a press conference.

However, official sources did not support the minister’s claim that load-shedding was the result of decline in power generation at Warsak.

They said the reason put forth by the minister was not the lone or major cause of the power breakdown being experienced in many parts of the province.

“There are certain reasons that have forced the company to carry out load-shedding,” said an official.

Apart from the Warsak power house, the Frontier received power supply from the national grid, therefore, said the sources, decline in power generation at Warsak should not affect too much the power distribution system in the province.

In reply to a question at his press conference, Mr Muqam said that several areas received power supply directly from the Warsak power house.

“Decline in power generation at Warsak power house has affected several areas because they cannot be supplied power through other sources,” said the minister.

He, however, said that measures were being taken to supply power to the affected parts from alternate sources of power distribution.

In this respect, he said, 50mw of electricity would be provided to the affected parts from the Mardan-Chakdarra line to partly overcome power shortage.

After presiding over a high-level meeting at Shahibagh grid station here on Thursday during which issues relating to load-shedding were discussed, Mr Muqam said at his press conference that flood in River Kabul had negatively impacted the power generation capacity of the Warsak power house.

With a total generation capacity of 200mw, Warsak power house, a run of the river power generation unit, generated 120mw on Thursday.

“During the last few days, power generation remained as low as 20mw and 30mw and at times it also went down to the zero level when the production had to be stopped as a precautionary measure to avoid damage to the power generation equipment,” said the minister.

As the flood water, he added, contained bushes, broken trees, corpses of cattle and other waste materials, therefore, the power generation plant had to be switched off on various occasions to save it from undergoing any damage.

“The power generation came to halt at times, during the past few days, after the plant was switched off,” said the minister.

An official of the power house said that water tunnels were closed twice a day, these days, for cleaning purposes.

He saw the problem to persist till the time Kabul river started receiving normal water flows.

“Water inflows in Kabul river have increased because of a sudden increase in temperature and the situation is likely to persist till the temperature comes to normal level,” said the officer.

The minister said that in an attempt to overcome the power shortage problem and avoid hardship to consumers, the company had decided to make alternate arrangements to meet power shortage in affected areas.

He, however, said that officials would be acted against if they resorted to lengthy load-shedding. “Power suspension would strictly be in accordance with the plan and action would be taken against officers found guilty of carrying out load-shedding beyond the prescribed time period,” the minister added.