LAHORE, Oct 28: The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) decided on Tuesday to reduce loadshedding by another hour – seven hours for urban areas and nine hours for rural feeders – throughout the country as it got a relief of 1,000 megawatt (MW) with improved water and gas supplies.

According to Pepco spokesman Tahir Basharat Cheema, the supply of 90 million cubic feet of gas, which is three times more than peak gas supplies in last many months, has helped the company increase power generation. An increased water discharge from Mangla Dam – from 8,000 cusecs a few days ago to 25,000 cusecs on Tuesday – also helped the company increase power production.

The company had announced a cut in loadshedding by an hour three days ago, when it started getting additional gas supplies on the instructions of President Asif Ali Zardari.

The government, he said, had formed a four-member committee which would sit at the National Power Control Centre and brief reporters everyday about the demand and supply equation of power.

The committee consists of the general manager (system operation), the general manager (operations), the general manager (thermal) and the Pepco director general. The committee would start working from today (Wednesday), Mr Cheema said.

About the recovery of bills, the spokesman said that the company had received three times more bills than what it would receive on any normal day. The revenue staff of the distribution companies also sat at banks and helped bank staff in bill collection, he said.

Mr Cheema said he was hopeful that the company would be able to cut loadshedding by another hour from Nov 1, as more independent power producers (IPPs) would start functioning after routine repairs. Though one unit (300MW) of Hubco will come back but another unit will go off thus making no difference.

The Muzaffargarh Power Plant (170MW) will also start working by Nov 15 and Jamshoro Plant by Dec 31, with almost 50 per cent increase in generation capacity – from 180MW to 270MW.

The company, he said, was now concentrating on Dec 20 to Jan 20 period when canal closures would take hydel generation off the system. The company was trying to bring all thermal machines back online before canal closures.

Even though there has not been reduction in power demand so far as it was 14,200MW on Monday, the company hoped that it would go down to 13,000MW in November and 12,000MW in December.