The government of Pakistan has announced to shut 5500mw power plants leading to an increase in load shedding due to a lack of funds and fuel shortages.
The report published in Bloomberg said that the government of Pakistan will be cutting electricity to households and industry as the cash-strapped economy cannot afford to buy coal or gas from overseas to fuel power plants.
In this regard, power plants producing 5500 MGW of electricity will be shut down. The government claims they are facing problems in procuring LNG and coal after the surge in their market prices due to the shortage in supply because of the war in Ukraine.
Load shedding has worsened across Punjab in the past few days. About 3500 megawatts worth of power capacity had been shut due to fuel shortages as of April 13th, claims the new Finance Minister Miftah Ismail. In a Twitter post, Miftah Ismail said power plants had been shut due to technical faults of lack of fuel. However, he asked if it is due to corruption or incompetence of the PTI government.
Read more: Did Pakistan economy really progress under PM Khan?
Imported govt announced load-shedding! Welcome to Purana Pakistan. pic.twitter.com/kBC0ymbSLf
— Muzzammil Aslam (@MuzzammilAslam3) April 20, 2022
Pathetic!! We had eliminated Load Shedding on all Feeders EXCEPT high loss Feeders which are 20% of all Feeders. Now we will have to listen to excuses!! کام کرنے سے کامپیں ٹانگ رہی ہیں؟۔ نااہل امپورٹڈ حکومت۔ 'Criminals Most Wanted' Govt. #امپورٹڈ_حکومت_نامنظور https://t.co/skrT3ZVUBj
— Omar Ayub Khan (@OmarAyubKhan) April 20, 2022
Read more: Finance Ministry rebuts int’l media news on Pakistan’s state of economy
Govt. making excuses?
Former Minister for Economic Affairs, Omar Ayub strongly reacted to the news of the shutting down of power plants. In his tweet, he said that the government of PTI had almost eliminated the load shedding from all the feeders except for the ones with high line losses and those feeders account for 20% of all the feeders. He claimed that the present government is making excuses for the load shedding in the country.
Pakistan government confirms they are resorting to power cuts after power plants generating 5,500MW are offline because of fuel and cash shortages. LNG and coal prices surged to a record recently https://t.co/hgHirtfDvV
— Faseeh Mangi (@FaseehMangi) April 20, 2022
Earlier the reports claimed that the load shedding time in Punjab has been increased from three to ten hours. Lahore Electric Supply Company is facing a shortage of 1000mw as the demand is 4100mw and the available power is 3100mw.
The electricity crunch is exacerbating the economic problems of Pakistan amid the rise in fuel costs. Pakistan is largely dependent upon energy imports.