Mirpurkhas leads Sindh in load-shedding elimination

In a historic move, the city area of Mirpurkhas district has been declared a load-shedding-free zone, marking a significant achievement. The ceremony occurred at the office of the Superintendent Engineer of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) in Mirpurkhas on Monday.

Federal Power and Energy Minister Muhammad Ali, Sindh Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar, and Secretary Energy Rashid Mehmood Langrial addressed the event via video link. Additional Secretary Power Division Hasan Naqvi, CEO of HESCO Bashir Ahmed, Commissioner Mirpurkhas Faisal Ahmed Uqaili, and other officials were present.

Congratulating the residents of Mirpurkhas for this milestone, the federal minister attributed the success to the efforts of HESCO officers and staff, district administration, police, business community, and locals. The inauguration on December 25 coincided with Quaid-i-Azam's birthday celebrations.

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Although HESCO had earlier declared several 11 KV feeders in different districts as load-shedding-free due to minimal line losses, outages persisted due to transmission faults. The CM highlighted the coordinated efforts of HESCO and provincial government departments in making Mirpurkhas the first load-shedding-free city. Mirpurkhas comprises 16 feeders of 11 KV.

The CM emphasised that combing operations, including securing meters and transformers and fixing faults, preceded the announcement. Initially reporting a collective line loss of around 30%, the crackdown against power theft in September reduced it to 17%. Baqar urged HESCO to replicate this success in other major cities within its 12 operations districts.

He also appealed to the public to pay electricity bills promptly and refrain from electricity theft. The country's distribution companies shifted to citing line losses as the cause of load shedding in 2017. Still, the hours of load shedding in HESCO's region have not decreased, suggesting unchanged or increased line losses.