New power minister says his priority is to reduce load-shedding duration.
Perhaps having learned a lesson from Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s much publicised, much mocked, and ultimately unfulfilled promises, the new Minister for Water and Power, Khawaja Asif, avoided giving any firm deadline for ending the prolonged power outages.
However, Asif said that his priority was to reduce load shedding hours in order to make them bearable and to ensure equal power cuts across the country. He did however say that the duration of power outages would be cut short in the holy month of Ramazan.
Speaking to media persons at his ministry in Islamabad on Saturday, Asif said that he would not give any deadline to end load shedding, but eventually did give a rough idea as to when some improvement can be expected
“I will not say it will take days, weeks or months to end load shedding but I can say that it will take a year at least. There is a supply-demand gap, as well as power theft and lots of corruption which needs to be eradicated,” Khawaja Asif told the media.
The minister added that in his view load shedding is like a pile of garbage that has piled up in the last 13 to 14 years, and could not be cleared immediately.
Asif said the PPP had five years to resolve the power crisis, but they neglected the core issues. He added that he has yet to take practical charge of the ministry and would only be able to gauge the real situation after four days of doing so. This time would be needed to go through the papers and review the situation on the ground, as he was unaware of the strategy being followed out as of now.
The minister also refused to comment when asked about an expected hike in the per unit electricity price being suggested by the newly elected PML-N government.
Pakistan has been suffering the worst power outages in its history with urban areas facing 12-16 hours of power cuts, while rural areas are facing over 16 hours of load shedding on a daily basis.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 9th, 2013.
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