Power outages rile citizens

Business, industrial activities in Punjab worst hit

LAHORE:

Frequent unscheduled power outages amid high temperatures have disrupted routine life in areas across Punjab.

Business and industrial activities are especially being hurt as a result of prolonged suspension of power supply in urban and rural areas.

Speaking to The Express Tribune on Thursday, a number of citizens complained about unscheduled electricity load-shedding in their neighbourhoods.

A citizen, Muhammad Rashid, said load-shedding was being carried out in his area after every hour, besides frequent tripping and low voltage.

“Owing to frequent load-shedding our UPS has also stopped working as the batteries are not being charged properly. There was no load-shedding during the last days of the previous government. The new collation government has all its focus on political activities and no attention is being paid to core public issues,” he maintained.

Babur Shahzad highlighted that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced that there would be no load-shedding after May 1 but it merely proved a political gimmick.

Even in urban areas citizens have to bear the brunt of up to 10 hours of power outages amid scorching summer heat.

The situation in rural and suburban areas is even worse, he added.

An official of the Lahore Electricity Supply Company (LESCO) disclosed that the company was facing a shortfall of over 1,300MW, among the highest in the region.

National Transmission and Distribution Company (NTDC) data shows that nationwide electricity shortfall stands above 5,500MW with power generation of around 21,500MW and demand of over 27,000MW.

A senior official of the power division indicated that limited availability of fuel for power generation was one of the major reasons of frequent electricity outages in the province.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi indicated in a TV programme that the government needed around R125 million worth of investment to curtail an hour of load-shedding, while it was was in a very poor economic condition.

He claimed that only a very few feeders with high line losses were experiencing 10-hour load-shedding in a day, while the rest of the areas are experiencing less power outages.

Much like the rest of the country, Punjab is in the grip of a heatwave and the ongoing political certainty coupled with load shedding has left residents lamenting about the government’s lack of concern.

Residents of South Punjab, in particular, have suffered the most with temperatures averaging 44 degrees celsius - something which was unheard of during April and May in previous years. Climate experts remark that this might be the coldest summer we get as the climate crisis will only worsen every year.

Chief Meteorologist Sahibzad Khan said that an advisory has been issued regarding the heatwave and people should avoid going out unnecessarily. “Temperatures have risen alarmingly both in South Punjab and other cities across Punjab. Even in Lahore, the average temperature of 43 is unheard of at this time of the year.

We realize that this is part of climate change but people are not prepared for such hot temperatures,” Sahibzad informed. Dr Javed Akram, Vice Chancellor of University of Health Sciences, while talking to The Express Tribune said that residents of Punjab had to be cautious during the heatwave.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 20^th, 2022.