Govt promises to reduce load-shedding to 3.5 hours from tomorrow

Former prime minister and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said on Monday that the duration of load-shedding would be reduced to three-and-a-half hours from tomorrow (Tuesday).

“The additional money has been paid while oil has also been arranged to ensure uninterrupted supply to the power plants. We are hopeful that by tomorrow load-shedding will be reduced to 3.5 hours,” he said while addressing a press conference in Islamabad.

He was accompanied by State Minister for Petroleum Musadik Malik, Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir Khan, and Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb.

Abbasi said that in the next phase when coal is imported, the duration of load-shedding will be further reduced.

"By June 30, the duration will be less than two hours, close to an hour-and-a-half," he said.

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Abbasi said that the power shortfall created by the bad policies of the previous government caused the ongoing load-shedding in the country.

He said that when the coalition government took charge, the electricity generation capacity was at 17,000MW which was increased to more than 21,000MW over the past three weeks.

“However, the country's electricity demand has exceeded 25,000MW during the summer with a shortfall of 4,000MW,” Abbasi said, adding that this translated into a little more than four hours of load-shedding to fill the supply and demand gap.

The former premier apologised to the nation on behalf of the government and cabinet for the inconvenience, saying that more time was needed to resolve the existing issues.