ISLAMABAD: The entire country has been experiencing unannounced electricity load shedding for hours and National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has taken serious notice and warned strict action against the power distribution company (DISCO) to be found involved in carrying out unscheduled power outages.
Expressing grave concerns over the sudden start of hours-long unannounced power cuts in the country, NEPRA in a statement issued on Thursday said that it has taken serious notice of unscheduled power outages across the country and asked the electricity consumers to file detailed complaints in the concerned regional offices against the DISCO for carrying out unannounced power load-shedding.
NEPRA has also declared that strict action will be taken against the concerned Sub Divisional Officers (SDOs), XENs (Executive Engineers), Superintendent Engineers (SEs), and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the concerned DISCO upon proven guilty for carrying out unannounced power cuts in its jurisdiction.
On Thursday, NEPRA chairman Tauseef H. Farooqi while chairing a public hearing on fuel price adjustment (FPA) for the month of February 2022 said that the country is currently faced with power shortfall of 5372megawatt (MW) while owing to fuel shortage 2139MW less power is being generated.
Since the government has been claiming the power generation capacity of 40,000MW so there should not be any affect on the system if five to seven thousands megawatt of electricity is not produced, said NEPRA chairman.
It is relevant to note that the Ministry of Energy in a tweet on Wednesday said,” Due to tripping of 3 nuclear plants, some areas had to face temporary loadshedding today. The plants will be back on the system within a few hours.” However, the unannounced power loadshedding continued on Thursday across the country to add misery to the masses, industries, commercial and domestic category of the power consumers.
The power consumers in different areas of the country including Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Gujranwala, Multan, Dera Ghazi Khan etc have been facing up to 10 hours of unscheduled power cuts.
Sources in the energy sector said that the on-going power shortfall is mainly due to liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply crisis, less electricity production with hydel source coupled with alleged bad administration on the part of the Energy Ministry for arranging fuel for power generation purposes.
The energy crisis of the country has been worsening ahead of summer season and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has forcefully closed the gas supply to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) stations.
According to senior leader of CNG association, Ghiyas Abdullah Paracha said that gas supply to the CNG sector has been suspended due to non availability of gas. He said that the government has failed to import full LNG from the last three years and due to this mis-management and fight among the ministers the people are not getting gas and electricity but they are paying the extra terminal and pipeline cost.
SNGPL didn’t give any timeline/date for restoring the gas supply to the CNG industry, said Paracha.
