KARACHI: Pakistan's Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir has blamed the worst breakdown in months on a lack of investment in the network that left millions of people without electricity. The outage, which began on Monday morning from 7:30 to 11:15 pm, was the second major breakdown since October.

 There hasn't been any investment in improving these systems from the previous government, he added.

Pakistan has enough installed power capacity to meet demand, but the sector is so heavily in debt that it cannot afford to invest in infrastructure and power lines. Dastgir said the cause of the outage was not yet known, but the ministry was conducting a safety audit of the entire network. The government plans to add more power distribution lines within the next 36 months, he added. Aneel Mumtaz, a power analyst while talking to “National Courier” stated that transmission and distribution are the weakest links. Millions of Pakistanis suffer partial blackouts almost daily, including scheduled "load shedding" power outs aimed at conserving electricity. In this regard, he disclosed that the main culprits are sitting in NEPRA and K-Electric Limited.

According to Aneel the KE has closed down almost all of its production plants except its Bin Qasim II plant, and another Chinese plant is working at PQA land. He alleged that the KE is responsible for theft of the interior Sindh’s electricity up to 1100 MW coming through NTDC, instead of producing its own electricity. Hence, there is maximum load shedding in Sindh rural areas from 12 to 20 hours every day.

This theft of energy is costing the KE just Rs.10/- per unit while its own production costs up to Rs.40/- per unit. Therefore, sometimes it attempts to get more energy i.e. up to 1500 MW but its transmission lines are not capable to bear the load of even above 220 Kva, hence these are tripped due to overloading and dip the whole country into darkness. They have also bypassed the protection system devices which is a criminal offense while it is a must to check the generation by protection devices.

He said at present the installed capacity of the country is claimed at 40,000 MW while demand is just from 30,000 to 33,000 MW. Hence, even after having seven to eight thousand MW extra generations capacity the trade and industry of the country are being pushed into darkness and bankruptcy, which is a crime.

In accordance with an old contract the KE was short of 350 MW of electricity for which it was allowed to lay two lines of 220 Kva each from Jamshoro to the KDA grid but the Company instead of getting 350 MW, enhanced this load up to 700 MW. Later two more lines were installed up to NKI and the Baldia grid. But since then the KE also closed down its own power production plants and entirely used the NTDC supplies and earning windfall that is the major cause of the countrywide breakdown of the energy, Aneel Mumtaz concluded.

Published in The Daily National Courier, January, 25 2023

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