ISLAMABAD, May 15: A high-level meeting at the Presidency on Tuesday deliberated upon the possible solutions to the ongoing electricity crisis, with particular reference to four long-term strategies.

The last seven days have witnessed three high-profile meetings being presided over by President Asif Ali Zardari to find ways to ease the electricity shortfall which has led to unscheduled suspension of supply from 16 to 20 hours in many parts of the country.

“The president directed that a special control room be set up in the water and power ministry which should display on the screen complete and updated information about power generation from different power plants, distribution to various companies and areas subjected to loadshedding,” said the president’s spokesman, Senator Farhatullah Babar, after the meeting.

Mr Babar said the president directed that the same system be replicated in the Presidency so that a special unit in his office could monitor the situation.

Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar informed the meeting that there was no unscheduled loadshedding in the country.

An official source told Dawn that the meeting discussed four strategies for seeking an end to the power crisis in the country but did not reach to any decision.

It was proposed to improve collection from the consumers. The main factor, which aggravated the circular debt, was the wide gap between collection and cost of power generation.

The government decided last week to release Rs7 billion to IPPs and others to ease their liquidity crunch.

The meeting decided to give Rs4.5 billion to state-owned Pakistan State Oil, Rs500 million each to three IPPs and the fourth IPP was given Rs250 million.

The disbursement of the remaining Rs750 million was not decided in the meeting.

A statement of the ministry of water and power clarified that Rs7 billion were distributed among nine IPPs against their receivables and other sectoral entities like Wapda and not to a single power producer.