LAHORE, Jan 10: Electricity shortfall for common consumers surged to well over 50 per cent on Tuesday, hitting a new winter peak and forcing the power managers to carry out loadshedding for 12 to 20 hours across the country.

The prolonged loadshedding has triggered violent protests in both rural and urban areas over the past two days. On Monday, Kasur and Sialkot exploded and it was the turn of Sargodha on Tuesday.

According to officials of the defunct Pepco, the situation has spun out of control with generation dwindling to 6,500 megawatts and demand hovering over 11,500MW, leaving a deficit of 5,000MW About 2,000MW through around 400 feeders are exempted from loadshedding because they cater to so-calledVVIP consumers (the presidency, Prime Minister's House, defence installations etc).The deficit for common consumers surging beyond 50 per cent meant that in operational terms more than half of the country would be without power at any given moment.

A snapping of gas supplies caused a deficit of about 700MW, the toll of a financial crunch on oil supply caused a shortfall of 3,000MW and canal closure brought the hydel power generation down to 500MW With severe cold griping the country and a gas squeeze continuing, 'people have started using electricity for heating instead of gas, adding to the company's woes,' they said.

In addition, there are some 'operational exceptions' at the local level, where staff of distribution companies decide which feeder is to be cut off and which one to supply power.

These factors have forced urban feeders, even in areas like Lahore, to resort toover 12 hours of loadshedding.

'Managing such a huge deficit in winter is a crisis due to the consumption pattern,' an official said. People use a very small quantity of electricity during winter as compared to summer. That's why even smaller deficits cause longer loadshedding in the winter.

At the same time, there appears to be no-one to manage coordination among different companies dealing with generation, transmission and distribution.

With Pepco almost dead and no alternative in place, every generation, transmission and distribution company is on its own. With none of them having a national picture in view, each one of them is operating on a narrow, local view.

In these circumstances, local variations in loadshedding have increased; the duration varies not only from company to company but even from feeder to feeder, the official said.