ISLAMABAD: Even before the onset of the summer, the power shortfall is beginning to be visible across the country, creating fears among the citizens that the intensity of the loadshedding might remain the same as it was during the previous government.

Though the residents of the federal capital enjoyed no loadshedding during the visit of the Chinese president recently, the heydays remained short-lived.

“It was really bad today as there was loadshedding after every 1-2 hours,” said Mukhtar Mohammad, a resident of G-8 sector.

Currently, all major cities in the country are facing between eight and 10 hours of loadshedding but the rural areas are without power for more than 12 hours daily.

“Due to the high demand, the shortfall has reached around 3,000 megawatts,” said an official of the ministry of water and power. “The generation remains at around 11,500 MW only because there is no supply from the hydropower.”

However, there is no official data available because the government has decided not to release power shortfall figures that used to be available on the websites of Wapda, the ministry of water and power and the National Transmission and Dispatch Centre.

Besides, the officials concerned have also been directed by the government to refrain from leaking data on the electricity shortfall to the media.

In the meantime, the loadshedding has started affecting the residents as the mercury is increasing and on Thursday touched 34 degrees centigrade in the federal capital.

Published in Dawn, April 24th, 2015

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