Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The government has miserably failed in reining in load shedding despite a change in the weather and a remarkable dip in electricity demand amid the reports that load shedding is continuing from three to five hours in urban areas and four to six hours in rural areas. Load Management Plan (LMP), under which 21 cities across the country were to be rid of load shedding, has fizzled out.

Sources said more electricity is available in the country than its demand and the country needs only 11,000 megawatt presently. Despite that, load shedding is not being contained. The main reason behind it is incompetence and inefficiency on the part of government. The prolonged and unannounced load shedding witnessed in Punjab a few days back has exposed the false claims of the Punjab government about overcoming load shedding. Load shedding from 10 to 12 hours was carried out in DISCOs falling in Punjab. The ministry of water and power was shifting its burden to NTDC. NTDC had said that a transmission and grip station tripped due to lack of rainfall which led to prolonged load shedding.

Sources said the major cause behind load shedding is circular debt, which is on the rise day by day. Line losses are also skyrocketing in important DISCOs rather than registering any decrease. If the overall situation is reviewed, we will come to know that line losses during the previous government were 18.2 percent, while at present they stand at 17.8 percent. Therefore, all the claims of government on containing line losses have proved false.

Sources said if the government does not observe load shedding, then line losses will increase further and it will become impossible to control line losses. Daily Times tried to contact ministry of water and

power to ascertain their stance but all the efforts remained unproductive as no response was received from the ministry.