Who is responsible for energy crisis in Pakistan?

 The long hours of power outages returned as Electricity shortages reaches to 7,100 megawatts 

The loadsheding has returned to the major cities of Pakistan in last few months. The main reason of this energy crisis is the mismanagement and inability of the previous PTI government to make timely decisions. The people of Pakistan are facing 10 to 12 hour power outages due to shortage of fuel to run the power plants. The current crisis is the result of poor and bad policies of PTI government. The people are not only facing power shortages but also facing gas shortage. it is the first summer in the history of Pakistan in which severe gas shortage is still there. In Lahore and Karachi, people are facing difficulties to cook food. The people of Pakistan are paying the price of the negligence and incapacity of PTI government.

The new government of PM Shahbaz Sharif has directed the relevant authorities to fix the problems of energy sector. But it will take time to make the power plants  fully functional again.   

The PTI government failed to import diesel and LNG for the power plants to produce electricity. The new government has inherited the energy crisis from the PTI government.  At Least 18 public owned power plants are shut because they need maintenance that was not done in last two years. Pakistan has the total installed capacity of more than 39,000 megawatts. 

But only 14,000 MW of electricity being produced while the total demand stands at 21,000 MW. So Pakistan is facing 7,100 MW of shortfall. Following the non-availability of required fuel for power generation and non-maintenance of some important power plants, the power outages that severely hit the masses across the country during the holy month of Ramazan have further increased up to 10-12 hours, making the lives of people miserable even at the time of Iftari and Sehri. 

All the urban centers such as Karachi, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Sialkot have been severely hit with 4-10 hours loadsheding and rural areas 10-12. In Karachi, 3-4 hours loadsheding is underway because of a reduction in electricity supply from the national grid by 300MW. In Interior Sindh, the loadsheding currently stands at 10-12 hours. In Rawalpindi, power outages hovered around 4-5 hours.  

Against the claim of the previous PTI regime of leaving the county in the “best running condition”, the electricity shortfall in the country has hit nearly 7,100 MW while the duration of unannounced power outages have reached 10 hours. The sources said the state-owned thermal power plants the capacity to produce over 4000 MW of electricity but several of them were shut because of technical faults while other were closed due to fuel shortage.

Due to the water shortage in the dams, the production of hydro power is low at the moment. Two major dams are almost on dead levels. Pakistan has total capacity of producing more than 9,400 MW hydro power but it is producing around 3,400 MW.  

The dwellers in Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Sialkot and their rural areas are also experiencing power outages from 4-10 hours. However, some areas are also facing loadsheding but at a bearable level.

In Lahore and its suburbs, the loadshedding stands at 4-10 hours. In the jurisdiction of MEPCO, power outages have increased to 12 hours. In Balochistan, the electricity loadshedding has surged to 10-12 hours. KPK is also facing power outages from 6-12 hours.

The sources said he government-owned thermal power plants the capacity to produce over 4000 MW of electricity but several of them were shut because of technical faults while other were closed due to fuel shortage.

Around 2,000 MW of electricity is being wasted due to technical problems of power distribution companies. The sources said the non-utilisation of generated electricity was causing a daily loss of Rs3 billion to the economy. The PTI government has also left behind a circular debt of Rs 2,500 billion. PTI government promised to bring the circular down but it added more than Rs 1400 billion to the circular debt.   

                                                             Rukhsana Manzoor Deputy Editor