ISLAMABAD, April 12: The government on Thursday decided to recover Wapda’s over Rs12 billion arrears from Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) in non-coercive manner and without power cuts, and restore all faulty units of Wapda system by May 1, 2007 to minimise prevailing energy crisis.

This was the outcome of a meeting held here and presided over by Water and Power Minister Liaqat Jatoi on the instruction of the federal cabinet.

The meeting also concluded that Wapda’s member water or member power would essentially attend meetings of the advisory committee of the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) in future so that both organisations could understand ground realities about water and power situation.

Informed sources told Dawn that the meeting decided that power supplies to KESC would not be reduced from 600mw only because over Rs12 billion were payable to Wadpa for many months and the issue of recovery would be resolved through other means.

The meeting discussed in detail the technical faults of all units of Wapda’s eight hydel and thermal power stations and reached the conclusion that most of these non-functional units would be back on power generation system by end of this month.

The cumulative impact of all these measures would mean that Wapda’s shortage would come down to about 500-600mw in peak summer that would be managed through various conservation measures to be introduced next month.

The meeting that was also attended by chairman and members of Wapda besides heads of generation companies, Irsa and senior government officials agreed to increase water discharges from Mangla by another 2,000 cusecs to 37,000 cusecs that would be increased to 47,000 cusecs by April 21 when repair works of the tunnel at two units are completed. This will enhance power generation from Mangla by 200mw.

It was also decided to get about 20 million cubic feet of gas per day from SNGPL for Faisalabad generation station that would enhance power generation capacity by 190mw. The Wapda was directed to repair Tarbela’s two units on war-footing and keep new transformers for Tarbela in reserve to meet any emergency. This would give another 175mw.

The Wapda authorities gave an undertaking that repair works would be completed in a week’s time, making available another 800mw power supply by end of this month. They also committed to restore two units of Chashma power station by May 1 and May 15 while Guddu’s two units would start full supplies within the next few days.

Similarly, Muzaffargarh and Multan stations would also be repaired in a week or so. Moreover, about 300mw of Liberty power station (a private sector project) which was on routine shutdown would also be available to the system by May 14.

The minister told the meeting that the president in particular and the government in general were unhappy over power outages and wanted to provide stable and adequate power to consumers “so that they don’t face any inconvenience due to shortage of power”.

He said the government was really angered by the fact that the consumers across the country faced electricity problems at the very beginning of the season only because of slow repair and maintenance activities of the Wapda authorities.

The power minister will hold a separate meeting early next week with KESC management to expedite steps to bring on line their plants on forced outage immediately to maximise power generation in KESC area.

It was noted that while Wapda would ensure at least 600mw supplies to KESC regularly but there was no reason for the KESC to move slowly on repair of its own facilities.