Pakistan’s power shortfall at 4,000 MW

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s power shortfall has reached 4,000 MW with outages ranging up to 17 hours in rural areas and up to 12 hours in urban areas.

The current demand for electricity is 11,500 MW while generation has reduced to 7,500 MW from 8,000 MW, Online news agency reported.

This has forced outages that are badly affecting industrial and domestic consumers.

Consumers have now demanded that PEPCO divide the shortfall equally among the four provinces and the VVIP feeders to end the outages.

Officials of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) officials said the crisis aggravated after the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) stopped discharge of water from Mangla Dam till Jan 20 due to which generation of 75 MW of electricity has also stopped.

IRSA said the Mangla Dam can store 300,000 acre feet of water but there would be need of 700,000 acre feet water in March-April for the wheat crop.