Islamabad: Power supply was restored in Pakistan on Tuesday after millions of people were left without power amid fears of default and economic slowdown due to the country’s balance of payments crisis. Monday’s massive power cut was the second such cut in nearly four months. Today at 5.15 am, the system was completely restored in the entire country. Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir said.
However, major cities including Karachi, Quetta and Lahore remained without power, Dawn newspaper said. Dastgir said it would take an estimated 48 to 72 hours for the restarting of about 6,600 MW of coal and 3,500 MW of nuclear plants. Till these plants start running, there will be limited load management, except for industrial users, he was quoted as saying by the paper.
The minister said that there is no shortage of fuel in the country. He said that we consider the electricity bills to be paid by the people and try not to unnecessarily use the power plants which require a lot of energy. According to Dastgir, the disruption began after frequency variations hit the national grid, resulting in a widespread shutdown of supply across almost the entire country.
Authorities began restoring power across the country and were finally able to restore normalcy by Tuesday. Dasgir, in his televised address, had promised to make the entire system functional by 10 pm on Monday, but it took longer to bring power to various areas.
He had said that the country’s transmission system has not been affected, but pointed out that electricity is needed to keep power plants and dams running. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has constituted a high-level committee to investigate the nationwide power outage. This was Pakistan’s third major power outage in three consecutive years, indicating serious complications in the country’s power distribution system.
The last breakdown in October 2022 took out around 8,000 MW from the national grid, and took more than 12 hours to restore.
It is said that the outage is a manifestation of the worsening economic crisis as the central bank has curbed imports, as foreign exchange reserves have plummeted to around USD 4 billion. Well-known journalist Shahbaz Rana, who reports on debt and economic matters, tweeted that the power failure is a symbol of the collapse of the governance system and economic recession.
This is the price the country will pay for the inflated arrogance of our rulers. He said that if things do not improve from here, soon the supply chain of almost all essential goods will break. Pakistan is grappling with one of the country’s worst economic crisis in recent years amid dwindling foreign exchange reserves.
The crisis earlier this month prompted the government to order shopping malls and markets to close by 8:30 pm for energy conservation purposes. The pathetic condition of the country’s power sector is indicative of its ailing economy. There are frequent power outages due to lack of funds to upgrade old infrastructure.