Govt blames Imran regime's 'negligence' for power crisis

Pakistan People's Party (PPP) leader Qamar Zaman Kaira on Monday said that people of the country were suffering from power outages due to the 'negligence' of the previous, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.

Addressing a news conference in Islamabad, the PPP leader criticised the former ruling party for "failing to commission several power generation plants as per schedule".

He was flanked by Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, Minister of State for Petroleum Musaddiq Malik and Minister for Energy Khurram Dastagir.

According to Kaira, who is also the Advisor to the Prime Minister on Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan, Imran-led government delayed projects of about 4,000 megawatts which had to be completed by 2020 or 2021.

If those projects were timely completed, the prevalent situation of power outages could have been avoided, he asserted.

Also read: NEPRA jacks up power prices for Karachi again

The PPP leader on the occasion announced that power supply situation would improve within the next four to five days as about 2,000 megawatts of inexpensive power would be added to the grid via increased inflows and enhanced hydel production from the Tarbela dam.

He added that as opposed to the production of nearly 24,000 megawatts of power, its demand had jumped to 30,000 megawatts.

"Despite paying a Rs1,072 billion of subsidy on power this year, circular debt has increased by Rs283 billion."

Kaira furthered that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had directed to minimise power outages to three hours as the coalition government was well versed with the problems being faced by the people already purturbed by inflation.

Turning his guns back towards the Imran Khan-led government, he blamed their lackadaisical approach for the miseries of the people and incumbent government.

He added that "difficult decisions were taken to save the country from going into a default."