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ISLAMABAD – Soon after assuming his charge Saturday, Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf called a meeting on energy crisis and received detailed briefing from the ministries concerned.
He called the meeting on the directions of President Asif Ali Zardari in face of public outrage against the unprecedented loadshedding across the country. The new prime minister understandably also seeks to clean his linen of the dirt accumulated during his tenure as water and power minister.
That time he earned notoriety due to his poor performance as the country plunged further deep into the abyss of power shortage, and later he was provisionally declared to be involved in the Rental Power Plants (RPPs) scandal by the Supreme Court, which ordered further inquiry into the matter.
At the meeting he chaired, Raja directed the petroleum ministry to ensure daily supply of 28,000 tones oil to power plants which would help add 1,200MW to the national power grid. It was also decided to provide 15mmcfd gas to GTPS, Fisalabad, which would add another 65MW to the system.
The participants also discussed provision of 100mmcfd additional supply of gas to Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation (KESC) to produce 300MW which would help KESC in reducing an equal off take from the national grid.
The gas is proposed to be made available to the power sector by suspending its supply of one more day in a week (66mmcfd) to the industrial and the CAPTIVE power sectors in Punjab. Similarly, 150mmcfd gas is proposed to be spared and given to the KESC by cutting one more day’s supply to Sindh, particularly from the industrial and the CNG sectors.
In the meeting, it was also decided to constitute two committees to hold negotiations with the representative of the Punjab industry and the CNG sector to convince them to agree to cutting of another day’s gas supply to them.
One committee would comprise ministers Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar (Water and Power), Dr Asim Hussain (Petroleum), Qamar Zaman Kaira (Information) and Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo (Kashmir Affairs). The members of the other committee would be Dr Hafeez Shaikh (Finance minister), Syed Khurshid Shah (Religious Affairs) and Dr Asim Hussain (Petroleum) to hold talks with the stakeholders in Sindh with the assistance of Governor Dr Ishratul Ebad and Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah into confidence.
Sources informed The Nation that the prime minister discussed with his cabinet colleagues both short and long terms solution to the problem, which has pushed the country at the verge of civil war. The meeting decided that government would bring unscheduled loadshedding to an end while efforts would be made to cut demand-supply gap.
Sources further informed that Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafiz Shaikh briefed the prime minister about the financial implications and the issue of circular debt. Raja asked the minister to study Ch Shujaat Hussain formula to manage the circular debt, which has almost crossed Rs400 billion mark.
Premier’s Adviser on Petroleum and Natural Resources Dr Asim Hussain gave a detailed view of the fuel provision to various IPPs for electricity generation. The PM said that petroleum ministry should ensure uninterrupted supply of fuels to power generation units.
Sources said the PM has set the target of ending unscheduled loadshedding within a fortnight and completely control the outages in a month or so. The meeting was informed that with the start of monsoon in next couple of weeks the water situation in the dams would improve which would help generating more hydel power.
They decided that a formal meeting on the energy crisis would be convened in the coming week after the prime minister’s Sindh visit and rational and practicable strategy would be evolved to reduce the loadshedding. That meeting would also discuss threadbare Shujaat formula.
PPP sources said the party leadership was quite disturbed over the looming energy crisis which is earning bad name to the party. The party could not afford loosing popularity at this critical juncture when next general elections are approaching fast and even could be held ahead of schedule, in the last quarter of this year.
Sources aware of the past few meetings held at Awan-e-Sadr informed that all the coalition partners were perturbed over the public protests against the load-shedding, particularly in Punjab, which his brought a sharp decline in their popularity graph. Therefore, they have been demanding President Zardari take immediate corrective measures to control the situation.