<strong></strong> ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Water and Power has issued special directions to the Distribution Companies and the National Power Control Center (NPCC) to optimally manage the increase in demand and supply gap of electricity due to very low hydel generation so that consumer may not face difficulties. The power system had to resort to forced loadshedding due to multiple factors which restrained capacity to generate. The biggest single factor was the low indent of water from the provinces which did not require much irrigation water after heavy rains during the past more than a month. The lack of water discharge from both Tarbela and Mangla led to drop of Hydel generation between 800-1200 during the past one week, out of the total hydel capacity of 7100 MWs. Another big contributor was the failure of two units of 300 MWs each (600 MWs in all) in HUBCO plant which created a large generation vacuum. These units after remaining out of generation have been brought back into operation. Hence, after initial forced loadshedding, the situation has been brought under control and it has now been limited to an extra one hour in addition to the scheduled loadshedding, that is 7 hours in average in Urban areas and 9 hours on average in Rural areas. The industrial feeders will remain at 8 hours load shedding as per schedule for summers. The industry after several years, remained on zero loadshedding for four months out of the past six months. The high loss feeders, the number of which is not more than 15-20% of all feeders, (where there are issues of theft or non-payment of bills) will have to bear higher load shedding. The discharge from Tarbela and Mangla is going to increase from 21st of April as per the demand of the provinces and the load management will be back to the planned schedule of 6 hours in Urban and 8 hours in Rural areas, InshaAllah. The Ministry regrets the inconvenience caused to the electricity consumers which was caused by factors beyond the control of the NPCC. The Government is making serious endeavors to bring in new generation projects in the coming years. The loadshedding during the interim period can be kept bearable both by the Power sector by making best use of the available capacity and by the general public by reducing the use of electricity wherever possible. The loadshedding in residential areas can be reduced if we do our shopping in day time and do not open shopping centers after sunset. <strong>INP</strong>
