Govt’s survival hinges upon managing power crisis

The decision to swap ministries of Naveed Qamar and Ahmad Mukhtar was made after the government was informed that the power supply and demand gap was expected to reach 8,000MW during June-August period and failure to manage demand could result in intensification of street protests.
An official source said that at a specially convened meeting at the Presidency, the Ministry of Water and Power and National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) were projecting the demand at 18,000MW and supply of 14,500MW for the summer.
However, the demand estimate worked out by the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) for the months of June, July and August was more than 20,000MW.
The meeting was informed that the heads of a few distribution companies (DISCOs) were also responsible for making matters worse by not addressing small faults on an urgent basis.
It was noted that the incumbent minister was not taking his task seriously as there were a lot of complaints regarding converting his house into a sub-office and visiting the ministry only once or twice in a month.
Ahmad Mukhtar, the source said, was selected for the job as he himself was ready to face the challenge and being an industrialist himself, he could pacify the business community.
A new minister was required to control the chief executives of DISCOs, who are directly approaching the PM for extension in service and some even complained against the incumbent minister if given some directives.
On his first day after assuming the office, Mukhtar was given a briefing on the power situation and unsatisfied with the presentation by NTDC, he ordered the suspension of its managing director Rasul Khan Masud, who is working on an extension for last several months.
But the real test for the minister will arrive when he tries to change the powerful CEs of LESCO, MEPCO and IESCO, who have close links with the PM.
NPCC, the source said, had informed the meeting that the demand in last 10 days of May was over 18,600MW, which was estimated to increase to 20,000MW by mid-June and to 20,300MW in July and August.
It said the supply would increase only after mid-July if there were timely monsoon rains, which would increase hydel power generation.
The government was informed that when the system worked under extreme demand, the supply would face unprecedented pressure resulting in outages and gas would be available for only 8,000MW of power during peak hours on average, resulting in 16 hours of load shedding daily.
It was pointed out that some of the incumbent chief executives of distribution companies were inciting the people to protest against the government by carrying out unscheduled load shedding.
Their motive in doing so was to block the government’s plan to appoint new chief executives from the private sector.
The government is under pressure from international financial institutes to appoint professional management in these multi-billion rupee entities to bring them out of the financial mess created by non-professional managers.
The source said the president was not satisfied with the performance of the minister and the ministry, as they could not give satisfactory answers why specific protest-hit areas in Punjab were facing long power outages even though load shedding was to be implemented uniformly and per schedule.