Power supply has improved marginally, crossing 9,000MW from earlier level of below 8,000MW with increase in fuel supply to the thermal units, said sources. It may be noted that heavy power outages during the last few days, for 10 hours in urban areas while 18 hours or more in the rural areas, resulted into strong protests and demonstrations in many parts of the country.
However, payment of over Rs 6 billion to the PSO lead to gradual improvement in power supply. But still many have paid heavy price of long hours load shedding. Especially, a good number of textile mills, running solely on power with no alternative arrangement of Captive Power Plants (CPPs), are planning to close operations. Talking to Business Recorder, the management of these ill-fated textile mills said that multiple factors were behind the closure of operations.
The short supply of electricity, however, was the major one. One disgruntled textile miller said it is becoming difficult to compete with the production of those mills running on gas-fed CPPs. He said each unit carries a different of over Rs 2 that has put the Pepco-fed units into a troublesome situation. Further, he added, consumption of yarn has reduced heavily due to redundant capacities as well.