June 23, 2015
News
Zardari writes to Nawaz; seeks help on load shedding in Sindh
KARACHI: Former president Asif Ali Zardari has asked Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to use his good offices to overcome load shedding in Sindh as the province is facing worst kind of power crisis amid very hot weather.
Zardari made this request to the prime minister on Monday trough a letter in which he pointed out that most of the Sindh areas were facing up to 20 hours of load shedding. He said non-resolution of issues regarding power shortage would further aggravate the situation in the holy month of Ramazan and later months.
The former president recalled that he had met the prime minister on May 13 this year and discussed the issues related to power crisis in Sindh. Subsequently, provincial finance and energy minister met federal minister for water and power in order to further discuss and find some solution to these issues.
The letter said that the Sindh government paid Rs 2.4 billion of their pending electricity dues and in return ministry of water and power was to resolve payment issues of small power plants in Naudero and Dadu and tariff issue of wind and small hydro plants besides reducing load shedding hours in Sindh. Zardari, in his letter, informed the prime minister that according to the report of Sindh finance minister, unfortunately, there was no progress on the part of the ministry of water and power towards resolution of these issues. Sindh senior minister also wrote a letter to the federal power minister on June 5, 2015 with request to resolve these issues. Murad Ali Shah in his letter to the federal minister wrote that Sindh still continued to suffer from prolonged power outages, causing huge inconvenience to the public. He said that the Sindh government paid Rs 2.4 billion to HESCO but the federal government did nothing to improve the situation and the province still faced the power shortage. Non-payment to small power producers in HESCO and SEPCO region adversely affected the power generation and the sponsors have started shutting down the power plants, the letter said. The closure of these SPPs would result in increased load shedding which is already around 20 hours a day, the letter added. Murad further wrote in his letter that his intervention restored 180MWs of affordable electricity into the system. He requested that instructions given to DISCOs in a letter by ministry of water and power dated 28 January, 2015 that they should not pay the SSPs at their level and payment to DISCOs will be made at the PEPCO level should be withdrawn.
The federal minister was informed that the Sindh government had received proposals from local and foreign investors to institute indigenous fuel-based SSPs and small hydro, wind and solar power projects. It was requested that LOIs be issued for these proposed plants by DISCOs, NTDC/CPPA and other federally administrated agencies concerned. The letter further said that request was made for issue of LOIs for Dadu and Naudero gas-based power plants but there had been no progress on any front.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk