ISLAMABAD, July 1: Wapda will increase power supply to the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation by 100-mw to a total 700-mw from Jamshoro as an emergency relief to overcome loadshedding in Karachi.

A decision to this effect was taken on Saturday at a meeting presided over by Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi and attended by Minister for Communications Shamim Siddiqui, Wapda chairman, water and power secretary and KESC managing director.

The meeting was convened in pursuance of the decision taken in recent meetings convened by President Gen Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

Sources said that with the additional supply to the KESC, the Wapda’s own shortfall would reach about 750-mw but most of the shortage was because of capacity constraints in the grid system.

The meeting was informed that the KESC was facing major problems because of a number of ‘no-go areas’ where consumption of ‘unsanctioned load through illegal connections and Kundas’ was putting a great pressure on transmission lines and grid stations. As a result, the consumption has suddenly grown by more than seven per cent.

The meeting was informed that Wapda was already providing about 600-mw of uninterrupted power supply to the KESC but there was still shortfall of about 210-mw because of the unsanctioned load.

The meeting was also informed that the KESC’s bin-Qasim power plant was also facing some problems besides a host of transmission and disbursement worries. The KESC management said its system improvement plan would yield about 200-mw of electricity but it would take more than six months.