The government’s power division on Tuesday announced that electricity had been restored all over the country.
Sharing the status of grid stations after a “system breakdown” that had plunged the country into darkness, the Ministry of Energy announced that power had been restored after 24 hours.
Minister for Power Engineer Khurram Dastgir further said that while all 1112 grid stations had been restored, “around 6,600 MW coal and 3,500 MW nuclear plants are estimated to take 48 to 72 hours to restart.”
“Until these plants are made operational,” the minister said, “there will be limited load management except for industrial users” adding that the power division was working hard to restart all plants.
A K-Electric spokesperson also remained more conservative in his claims saying that while electric grids had been made “functional”, the restoration of electricity was still “underway on the local level”.
“Re-establishment of connectivity between Karachi and the National Grid last night has helped improve the supply to the city of Karachi,” the spokesperson said adding that “electricity has been restored to important installations including airports, hospitals, water pumping stations etc.”
However, the statement also stated that “to keep the system stable, temporary load management could be expected on a limited scale”.
Scores of citizens continued to complain over social media over continued blackouts to which the official K-Electric account has expressed acknowledgment and assured them that “teams have been notified to resolve the issue at the earliest”.
Meanwhile, Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) in a statement said that while power was restored in all areas late last night, “load management is being done in some areas due to frequency issues arising again”.
Without confirming how long it would take for power to be fully restored, the LESCO said that “power will be resumed without interruptions as soon as the situation improves”.
It may be noted that the country has incurred a loss of around Rs100 billion due to a halt in economic activities in the wake of total blackout nationwide, as authorities failed to restore power supply to factories from dawn to dusk on Monday.
The business community flayed the government for the countrywide power failure for the second time in less than three months’ time. They said the full-day power outage has taken place at times when the country is barely taking output at factories due to non-availability of raw material amid high financial crisis in the country.
The outage, which the Energy Minister had said was due to a voltage surge, is the second major grid failure in three months, and adds to the blackouts that Pakistan’s nearly 220 million people suffer on an almost-daily basis.
