LAHORE: The duration of loadshedding in different cities of the country and industrial sector has been extended from 8 to 10 hours as the electricity shortfall reach 4,000MW.
Sources said that the total power generation has declined to 11,000MW against a demand of 15,000MW. Ministry of Water and Power officials claimed that significant drop in hydel power generation has caused sharp increase in loadshedding, as lack of water discharge from Tarbela and Maangla dams resulted into reduction of hydel generation by almost 1000MW for the last few days, out of the total hydel capacity of 7000MW.
They said that enhanced power outages were because of low release of water from the provinces which did not require much irrigation water after heavy rains during the past few months. Another reason was the failure of Hubco’s 300MWs units, creating a large generation gap.
Meanwhile, All Pakistan Business Forum President Ibrahim Qureshi strongly protested against the return of massive loadshedding, which has crippled business activities, and urged the government to resolve the matter before the economy is further destroyed. He said thousands of workers were employed in the local industry and sudden huge increase in electricity loadshedding has rendered them idle for long hours.
