- Government should take responsibility for national blackout
Two days have passed since the country witnessed a sudden national power grid breakdown, plunging it into darkness for hours, with some areas still without electricity, but the PTI government has failed to satisfactorily explain what went wrong. This was by no means a small event; a blackout of such a magnitude would make any country vulnerable to attack, as its defense systems, heavily reliant on an uninterrupted supply of electricity, would be compromised. Thankfully none of the many rumors doing the rounds on social media, spreading fear and panic, turned out to be true. However, as some very fundamental and basic questions remain unanswered, there is a state of confusion. By its own admission, the country has an installed capacity of 35,975 Megawatts, which is tested the most during peak summer season, necessitating load shedding. Why then did all power houses of the country trip simultaneously on a cold winter day, that too around midnight, when the load is perhaps at its lowest? When asked this question not once but twice during a recent presser, Federal Minister for Energy Omar Ayub deflected with a knee jerk reaction in typical PTI fashion, blaming past governments for ‘not paying any attention’ towards the improvement of the transmission system.
As is usual with such incidents, an inquiry committee has been constituted to look into the causes for the power collapse, a process that will take time and will refrain from blaming the government. In the meanwhile, experts have weighed in and stated that the improper and inadequate maintenance of transmission lines is the most likely culprit. One opinion explains how after a similar blackout occurred in 2015 as a result of sabotage, zoning systems were created in the NTDC so that any breakdown would remain isolated to a particular region and not affect the entire transmission infrastructure. This mechanism came online in 2016 and no major breakdowns took place in the past four years till now because allegedly the ‘system safety gadgets’ have not been maintained or upgraded in the past three years. The PTI has now been in power for close to three years therefore responsibility for such major faux pas lies solely with the ruling party. Instead of blaming everyone else for its many shortcomings, the government should admit that there is a problem and try to fix it rather than making childish excuses.
