ISLAMABAD, Jan 17: A change in the water distribution plan has worsened the country’s power crisis because of major damage to a protection wall of the Taunsa Barrage.

“The peak power shortage has already touched 1,000 megawatts from about 700MW early this week,” an official of the Water and Power Development Authority told Dawn.

The Indus River System Authority (Irsa) has asked Punjab to come up with an alternative plan about the water re-routing, take other provinces into confidence and get their approval for opening canals.

The canals that remained closed both in Sindh and Punjab during the past few weeks were originally scheduled to come into operation within the current week.

The Wapda official said there had been no end to loadshedding despite an announcement in this regard by the government.

He said peak power shortage had been to the tune of about 1,000MW, that came down to about 600-700MW last week when gas quantities were diverted from Sindh to the Kot Addu plant.

“The shortage has risen to about 960-1,000MW again,” he said.

The peak supply on Wednesday evening stood at about 10,600MW against an estimated demand of 11,500-11,600MW.

The Wapda distribution companies managed the shortfall through loadshedding.

Under the original re-routing plan, 15,000-20,000 cusecs of water was being released from Taunsa till early this week and it was to be enhanced to 30,000 cusecs. Releases from Tarbela were increased from 18,000 cusecs to 23,000 cusecs on Tuesday and should have been brought up to about 45,000 cusecs from Jan 21.

However, the damage to the protection wall of Taunsa Barrage forced the Punjab irrigation authorities to request Irsa to reverse the plan. As a result, releases from Taunsa were again reduced to 18,000 cusecs from 30,000 cusecs. This led to reduction in releases from Tarbela by about 6,000 cusecs.

This reduced power production not only from the Tarbela power house but also from Ghazi Barotha.