Ahmed Mukhtar Naqshbandi
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Energy Minister Khurram Dastgir said on Tuesday that power has been restored nearly 24 hours after a massive breakdown in the national grid triggered the worst outage in months.
In a televised address, the minister said it took time for full restoration as there was a “delay in synchronization” between Tarbela and Mangla power plants.
“But with the support of the Power Division, Wapda, and other departments, we fixed the technical problem, after which power at systems across the country was restored”.
“Today, at 5:15 am, the system was completely restored across the country,” Dastgir said.
The minister pointed out that there would be an electricity shortage in the next two days.
Ministry stance on the grid stations
He elaborated that approximately 6,600 megawatts of coal and 3,500MW of nuclear plants would take an estimated 48 to 72 hours to restart. “Until these plants start running, there will be limited load management, excluding industrial users.”
Dastgir further said that there was no fuel shortage in the country. “We are considerate of the electricity bills people have to pay and try not to unnecessarily use power plants that require a lot of energy.”
Talking about the investigation into the breakdown, the minister said that the government suspected “foreign intervention such as hacking of systems”.
He said, “But its chances are very less. There have been incidents previously, and we have to rule out this thing,”.
Dastgir also blamed the PTI government for the electricity breakdown, saying that it had not worked on upgrading the systems.
However, contrary to the government’s claims, several areas across the country were still without power as of Tuesday morning.
