The Finance Ministry has released a sum of Rs 15 billion to the Ministry of Water and Power to ensure provision of fuel to thermal power plants to overcome the energy crisis.
On the other hand, ,masses irked by prolonged outages ran out of patience and resorted to immense and vociferous protests on the streets of Punjab and KP on Tuesday.
The decision for provision of the fund was taken in a meeting held under caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso on Tuesday. The Finance Ministry would release another Rs 7.5 billion to the Ministry of Water and Power this month per the decision, besides arranging Rs 42 billion next month on this count.
The release of this amount would ensure continuity of fuel supply to thermal power plants, enabling them to generate power in conformity with their potential.
When the PPP-led coalition government came into power, the power shortfall stood at 3,000MW and the circular debt was around Rs 250 billion. Soon after assuming power, the government claimed it would end load shedding by December 2009. But these claims proved only hollow promises and the problem aggravated further.
On the contrary, the circular debit surged to Rs 600 billion and power shortfall escalated to 6,000 megawatts.
Citizens of Punjab have to face power outages for up to 16 hours a day in urban areas and 21 hours in rural localities.
Energy sector experts warn that if no emergency arrangements are made by the new government, it would become hard for the people to spend the summer. They opined that the government would have to introduce duty-free policy for the period ranging between 5 to 10 years for the private sector to import power generation machinery. Payments of billion of rupees will also have to be made to gas and oil marketing companies immediately.
PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif is contemplating importing 10,000MW of electricity from India. The PML-N-led government will consider seriously evolving short term and long term strategy to import 1000MW from India to over come power shortage.
Meanwhile during protests against the power outages, people in Lahore staged a protest outside the residence of PML-N President Nawaz Sharif, raising slogans against the caretaker setup.
Protests were also held in Multan’s Chowk No 9, Bahawalnagar’s district bar association and Peshawar.
Officials of water and power have put the electricity production at 11,260MW against a demand of 15,000MW, an overall shortfall of 3,740MW.
