Cabinet Committee on Energy urges no power outages during Ramazan

ISLAMABAD, June 6 (APP): The Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCE) chaired by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif Tuesday unanimously approved no power shutdowns on account of development works during the month of Ramazan.
The prime minister stressed pro-active planning regarding power supply
and demand, terming unfortunate the planning by relevant authorities ignoring important contingency factors.
He directed the Ministry of Water and Power to undertake power supply
and demand analysis upto year 2023 so as to undertake integrated long-term planning about fulfilling energy requirements.
He also directed to work out shifting of scheduled outages of power
plants in view of repairs and maintenance from summer to winter to ensure maximum power supply.
The secretary Water and Power Division briefed the meeting on progress of decisions made in the previous meeting including working of the inter-ministerial committee of Finance, Water and Power and Petroleum and Natural Resources ministries, power supply and demand analysis till September 2018 and utilization of idle power plants.
It was also decided that factors including increase in use of electric
appliances due to economic prosperity and behavioral patterns of power consumers be included in the estimation of projected power demands.
The CCE also accorded in-principle approval for establishment of a new
LNG based 1,200 MW capacity power plant.
Minister for Finance Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbassi, Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal, Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif, Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb and other senior officials attended the meeting.