The Sindh government will take action against the K-Electric (K.E.) if it provides evidence to prove that the privatized power utility has not been consuming furnace oil for power generation, thus worsening the power crisis situation in the provincial capital.
Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh announced this on Thursday while addressing a press conference at the Sindh Secretariat.
He said the monopoly of K.E. on the power supply system of Karachi was going to end in 2023. He added that recently, the K.E. chief executive officer (C.E.O.) was called by the chief minister over the sufferings of the people of the city due to recurring power cuts.
According to Shaikh, the power utility C.E.O. informed the CM that load-shedding lasting up to nine hours was being carried out in the city due to the high cost of power produced by furnace oil.
The minister said that the early closure of the markets and shopping centers in urban areas would provide only a temporary solution to the persisting issue of the power crisis. He added that the Sindh government would take such a decision only after consulting the fraternity of the concerned traders and businessmen of the city.
He expressed the hope that the present federal government would overcome the energy crisis in the Country. He blamed the last federal government for the current power crisis.
Shaikh said Sindh had ample natural resources whose maximum utilization could go a long way to ensure uninterrupted and inexpensive power to the entire Country’s people.
He remarked that previous rulers had been informed about the importance of energy resources available in the province, but they did not heed that owing to their anti-Sindh stance.
He said the previous regime of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf did not help the province set up new renewable energy plants that could have produced clean electricity utilizing wind and solar power. He said the Sindh government would make sure that these clean energy plants were set up in the province as early as possible with the federal government’s support.