ISLAMABAD: The government has set up a computerised control room for real-time monitoring of power generation, supply and loadshedding across the country to address allegations of discrimination in electricity distribution.

Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali launched the recently installed software on Monday as the nation braved about 10 hours of loadshedding.

The software was imported a few years ago but had not been put to use and the power bureaucracy kept on manually recording contribution of electricity by various independent power producers (IPPs) and plants of public sector generation companies.

The Prime Minister’s Adviser on Energy Dr Musaddik Malik had ordered activation of the software in May last year when he was power minister in the interim government before elections.

To be based at the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) in Islamabad, the software will provide data of electricity produced by each plant and the supply to and loadshedding in each area at a given time.

The NPCC’s software will also provide real-time generation and distribution data to the ministry of water and power where a centralised computer monitor will be operationalised on Tuesday.

Every distribution company will have access to real-time data about power supply situation at any feeder in aits area.

The Karachi-based K-Electric, being in the private sector, will be the only entity that will not provide feeder-wise details to the NPCC and the data will only show how much electricity the company is drawing at a given time.

Earlier, the NPCC did not have the capacity to know where a distribution company was providing electricity and applying load cuts, although it distributed the available power among them.

The minister said the control room would put to an end a perception being created by some elements about alleged discrimination among provinces.

He reiterated that he had not described any Punjabi, Sindhi, Baloch, Pakhtun or Sindhi as electricity thief, saying he had used the term for those stealing power and not paying bills without a reference to any province, section or group.

He said the total generation currently was about 11,000MW and there was a shortage of 3,100MW.

He said the government would ensure fuel supply to the power plants at Kot Addu and Muzaffargarh to add another 800MW.

Mr Ali confirmed that about 10 hours of average load management was being carried out throughout the national grid.

He said the prime minister would lay the foundation stones of two power plants of 1,320MW on Tuesday at Port Qasim, followed by the Gadani Power Park in August.

He alleged that kickbacks in power contracts in the past had badly affected investment.