Loadshedding and heat take their toll: Buyers scramble over each other trying to purchase blocks of ice at Krishan Nagar. PHOTO: ABID NAWAZ/EXPRESS
Power outages of up to 20 hours per day continued in parts of the city on Saturday, as the supply fell below 50 per cent of demand and temperatures soared to near 50 degrees Celsius.
A spokesperson for the Lahore Electric Supply Company said that demand stood at around 4,500 MW while the company was only getting 2,200 MW from the national grid, leaving a shortfall of 2,300 MW. “With the shortfall at more than 50 per cent of demand, it is hard to manage things and keep load shedding on schedule,” he said.
While parts of the city have been getting one hour of electricity for each hour without, some areas have suffered continuous outages of three to four hours and up to 20 hours of electricity a day, particularly rural areas. Businesses are also hurting due to the lengthy outages while richer neighbourhoods didn’t escape the load shedding either.
“I could not have imagined there would be 20 hours of load shedding in Lahore and that too in posh areas,” said Shahid Ali, a resident of Cantonment. “The days are miserable and the nights are restless. My children are affected, as is my office. I hope the new government can change things. I know they can’t finish load shedding at once but they could at least make it more bearable,” Ali said.
Students at Punjab University held a protest against power outages. “The university hostels have an independent feeder for uninterrupted power supply, but there has been no electricity in the hostels for the last 18 hours,” said Hassan Raza, a student. “The rooms are too hot for studies.”
The national shortfall is still around 7,000 MW, as generation stand at 9,500 MW and demand at over 16,000 MW. Experts warn there could be even longer power outages in the near future due to the non availability of oil for independent power plants unless the government acts.
These power plants need 32,000 tonnes of oil a day to operate at full capacity, but currently receive less then 20,000 tonnes.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 26th, 2013.
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People of Lahore... enjoy the consequences of the choices you made. You din't learn in the previous five years, so bear the next 5 now and don't complain as the new govt. has already said that they can't give you any time to end this load shedding.
Pakistan is failing in the basics. We have failed to build more power stations to make up for our increased population. Demographers make long term forecasts of our population. Our technocrats were told a long time ago that our population would hit 190 million so why did they not make plan for new power stations. . Maybe I am getting too old but I do not remember it being this bad when I was young.
The Govt of Pakistan must think about Nuclear power plants instead of nuclear weapons they have enough nuclearweapons and India will never attack Pakistan we want peace which is must for development.I am just thinking about 20 hour load shedding here on this side of border we are getting 24 hour supply and in case of such power outage what will be the condition of patients in hospital how the people live without powere in 48 degree celcius temperature,
What happened to that Nuclear-Energy idea? I am no scientist/engineer but I guess if we can make weapons we can make electricity from nuclear fuel as well... i know its easier said than done... but the current planning seems to be going nowhere... More projects on the lines of Chashma Power Plant would help? Maybe...