Daytime power outages to be doubled in Ramazan

Khalid Mustafa
ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to double electricity loadshedding during the daytime in the month of Ramazan to ensure power supply during Iftar and Sehri hours instead of improving the supply side through conservation measures which were implemented last year.

Secretary Water and Power Imtiaz Kazi told the Senate Committee on Water and Power here on Wednesday that the government would ensure electricity supply across the country from 7 to 9pm for Iftar and 3 to 5am for Sehri, and to this effect hydro generation would be harnessed during the said hours while hydro generation would be reduced in the daytime, meaning that loadshedding would be doubled then.

An official at the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) told The News that the government had failed to hold the energy summit of all stakeholders and provinces to implement conservation measures which were implemented last years to save electricity for industry and domestic consumers.

In previous years, a two-day holiday in a week, staggering of electricity holidays for industries, rescheduling of power supply to tube wells, closures of markets at sunsets, regulated use of ACs at offices and by domestic consumers, are some of the measures that were implemented, and because of which massive electricity was saved.

This year, however, the Ministry of Water and Power headed by Naveed Qamar has failed to hold the energy summit and develop consensus to implement conservation measures. "This is one of the main reasons that the masses have been suffering 8-10 hour loadshedding in urban areas and 15-18 hour in rural areas," said the Pepco official.