‘Favoured’ industries lose power to Karachi

Lahore Electric Supply Company’s shortfall reaches 950 MW.

LAHORE:

The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) has increased supply to the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESCO) by 70 megawatts – from 660 MW to 730 MW.

Meanwhile, the PEPCO has started suspending supply by up to four hours to several industries in the Punjab earlier exempted from outages.

PEPCO director general Muhammad Khalid said that the KESC was getting electricity from HUB Power Company (HUBCO).

Khalid said that textile, power looms, fertilisers, paper, sugar, chemicals sectors, earlier exempted, would now face up to four hours of power outages. He added that they had asked cement factories to cut production by 50 per cent.

He said the reduction in fuel supply by the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) was responsible for the current power crisis. He said PSO was supplying only 1,400 tonnes of oil per day, though the demand was around 3,600 tonnes.

He further said that due to short supply of gas, Kotri and Jamshoroo power plants were shut down and Guddu, Saif, Saffire, Orient, kabirwala and RAUSH plants were getting lesser than required quantity of gas.

He said that national security facilities such as the Atomic Energy Commission, Kahuta Research Laboratories; public hospitals and water supply and disposal works were exempted from outages.

Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) chairman Sohail Lashari, however, said that they were experiencing an hour of power outage after every 15 minutes of uninterrupted supply. This, he said, was not just affecting the industry but had also made daily-wage workers jobless.

The shortfall of Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) has risen to 950 MW, with a supply of 1,750 MW and demand of 2,800 MW. Urban areas were experiencing up to 12 and rural up to 20 hours of outages.

A LESCO spokesperson told The Tribune that the shortfall had made it very difficult to abide by the load shedding schedule. He said they were updated schedules from the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) after every hour.

He said they had to shut down the feeders to manage the load because if they shut down the grid it took up to 12 hours to resume operation.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26^th, 2011.