HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industry president Mohammad Farooq Shaikhani has said that Monday’s power breakdown has exposed weaknesses in the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) system.

In a letter sent to federal minister Khurram Dastagir the other day, Shaikhani urged the minister to order judicial probe into the prolonged power breakdown.

If judicial inquiry was not conducted then such breakdowns would keep recurring in future, he cautioned.

He said that NTDC officers should be suspended because the episode had laid bare their incompetence. Responsibility should be fixed on them and they should be awarded severe punishment, he said.

He said that there were 41 thermal independent power plants and the country had a capacity of producing 43,775MW of electricity till June 20, 2022, and of it 26,683MW had been obtained through thermal power plants, 10,635MW from hydel, 1,838MW through wind energy, 530MW from solar plants, 369MW from bagasse and 3620MW from nuclear plants.

He said that Pakistan’s electricity needs were assessed at 26,000MW. Monday’s power breakdown was reported for the second time in three months which not only exposed the system’s weaknesses but also negated government’s own tall claims about energy sector, he said.

He said that Pakistan’s transmission and distribution system could not work adequately. Any fault in the system should have been localised technically without disturbing the entire connecting system but it did not happen, he said.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2023