KARACHI, Oct 6: The federal minister for water and power, Liaquat Ali Jatoi, said that the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) would have no excuse to continue loadshedding in Karachi from Oct 9 as the corporation would have surplus supply within the next two days.

Talking to newsmen after presiding over a meeting of the KESC officials at the head office of the alternative energy department here on Friday, the minister said that the KESC was currently facing a shortfall of 44MW.

He said that the corporation had bridged the gap of 106MW during the last one week, while the remaining shortfall of 44MW would be met by Monday.

Mr Jatoi said that the Korangi thermal power unit had been lying closed for the past one week causing a shortfall of 20MW. "I have directed the KESC management to repair and put this unit on system within two days", he maintained. The minister also directed the Hubco management to provide 25MW additional supply to the KESC from Monday.

During the meeting, Mr Jatoi spoke to the secretary petroleum and the managing director of the Sui Southern Company Limited directing them to ensure supply of 15 million cubic feet gas to the steel mills so that it could restore its power unit lying closed for the last couple of months due to non-supply of gas. The steel mills power unit has the generation capacity of 20MW.

Mr Jatoi directed the management of Siemens, the technical partner of the KESC, to provide mobile transformers in those areas where loadshedding was undertaken due to overloading of transformers. This, he said, would provide an additional supply of 16MW to the KESC.

"Now, the KESC will get an additional supply of 81MW, which is almost double to the actual shortfall of 44MW, therefore, logically, there should be no loadshedding in the city from Monday", he said.

He said he would hold another meeting with the KESC officials on Monday to review the measures to put an end to the problem of loadshedding in the city.

The federal minister admitted that the citizens had been facing problems, especially in Ramazan due to loadshedding, and the federal government was fully aware of the situation.

"I am here on the directives of President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Miniter Shaukat Aziz. They want an immediate end to the loadshedding", he maintained.

Mr Jatoi assured the KESC management that the federal government would fully assist the KESC to bring an end to this problem.

Currently, the total electricity requirement of the city is 2,100MW, of which the KESC is generating 1,135MW through its own sources, while 750MW is being supplied by Wapda, and Hubco. The KESC gets 231MW electricity from two private-sector power stations, Tapal and Gul Ahmed.—Online