Pakistan: Loadshedding at its worst

[phantom power]

LOADSHEDDING disrupted the life of millions of people from all strata of society and the last one week was truly gruesome across the country in general and in the provincial metropolis in particular.

Students, patients, commuters, workers in public and private organisations, shop owners, industrialists badly suffered throughout the last week as the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) and its Distribution Companies DISCOs, especially Lesco, had been completely unaware as to how much forced power outages were being carried out by the National Power Control Center (NPCC), Islamabad.

People from across the provincial capital said that after facing the long and abrupt forced loadshedding during the last week, it appeared to them that the schedule loadshedding, itself a scourge, was a blessing for them.

According to the official figures, there was not even a single day during the last week when the power shortfall came down from 5,000MW, rather sometimes, it went above 6,000MW. It showed that one the temperature of the City abnormally went high as compared to the previous years while the generation of the National Grid of Pepco was standing where it was in the last year. Another reason, which Pepco gave, was the low hydel generation in comparison with the last year, which Wapda authorities kept on denying.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=232480