ISLAMABAD, May 20: As loadshedding surged across the country amid rising temperatures and declining generation, the caretaker government decided on Monday to inject another Rs22.5 billion into the power system to revive a broken down supply chain and provide some relief to the consumers.

Power Minister Dr Musadik Malik announced the decision taken by the prime minister, but said injection of public money into a highly corrupt, inefficient and bottomless power sector was not the best of economic decisions.

The decision had nevertheless been taken to provide relief to the people suffering from widespread outages under extreme weather conditions, he said.

“The power sector has plunged into a grave crisis soon after the elections, resulting in serious loadshedding for which we apologise to the nation. But causes of the problem are outside the control of the power ministry,” Dr Malik said at a news conference.

He attributed the problem to disruption in fuel supplies, saying the power sector was getting 19,000 tonnes of furnace oil from the petroleum ministry during the election time that plunged to an average of 11,000 tonnes per day because of non-payments.

On top of that, the ministry cut additional gas supply to power houses by half – from 50 million cubic feet daily to 75MMcfd.

As a result of these factors, the generation tumbled to about 9,500 megawatts from 12,800MW a week ago. He said the demand had increased to about 15,500MW, leaving a shortfall of over 6,000MW.

The minister said after he raised the alarm before the prime minister, the latter immediately called a meeting of the ministries of petroleum, power and finance and ordered disbursement of Rs22.5bn within a day.

About Rs15bn of the amount will be utilised to retire letters of credit of the Pakistan State Oil (PSO) to revive the oil supply chain, while Rs3-4bn has been earmarked to purchase diesel for four efficient power plants in the private sector that were facing closure due to gas cuts. The diesel-based electricity would be expensive, but not much when compared with the suffering of the people, the minister said.

He said a couple of shipments of furnace oil ordered by PSO had to be cancelled or delayed in recent weeks, but one of them had been revived following the decision for fresh disbursements.

As a result, the power generation has again increased to 10,800MW and will improve to about 12,500MW in two days.

Dr Malik said the prime minister had asked the finance ministry to sanction another Rs42bn for disbursement to the power sector next month because Rs22.5bn would cater for only 10 days to maintain the supply at 12,000MW during the current month.

“We do not want to leave the power sector to the elected government in a shape we inherited from our predecessors,” he said in an attempt to justify the allocation for next month when the new government would be in its early days.

He said he had inherited a power generation of 7,800MW and had been able to increase it to 12,800MW in a short period, which meant that the coming government with substantial time and understanding could add another 3,000MW in three months.

Dr Malik said his ministry and the power sector were full of corrupt officials and he had been able to dislodge the linchpin of the mafia by removing some of the key officials, including the managing director of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC), head of the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) and a few others at the Jamshoro Generation Company.

“But it would be the job of the next government to take the process forward to get rid of the corrupt rot deep set in the entire system if it wants to bring under control the power crisis, because corruption worth Rs75bn is taking place in a single deal,” he said.

He said the new government, with a broader mandate and resources at its disposal, could substantially bring the system under control only by bringing offline power houses into use, ensuring expected improvement in hydroelectricity generation and controlling theft.

Dr Malik said a random audit over the past few days had revealed that 22 out of 32 grid stations had been closed down in Gujranwala region, the entire Sialkot was out of system for the coming few days and Faisalabad was off grid, while Mansehra region did not get electricity for 18 straight hours.

The minister said power production at the Jamshoro plant could have been made possible at five cents per unit through its dedicated gas supply, but the electricity was being produced at Rs16-18 per unit on furnace oil.

“This is criminal and unacceptable. You cannot run a business by selling a product at Rs8 against its production cost of Rs14,” he said.

He criticised the contracts signed with the Karachi Electric Supply Company and revisions in them introduced by the previous government, but said the caretaker government did not have the mandate to open legal documents during a short period.

The contracts could be revised by making use of violations being committed by the KESC, which the next government would be better placed to look into, he said.

“The new government would have to move quickly for conversion of power plants to coal and co-generation to resolve the crisis,” the caretaker minister concluded.