However, the government regrets the inconvenience caused to the public and the lessons learnt from this event will be fully utilised to further improve the system, he added.
Jatoi was talking to newsmen after presiding over a meeting here. In the meeting, the minister reviewed the power situation in the country in the aftermath of country-wide power breakdown on Sunday.
The meeting was attended by secretary water & power, Ashfaq Mahmood, chairman Wapda, Tariq Hamid, member (power) Anwar Khalid, member (water) Muhammad Mushtaq Chaudhry, member (finance), Imtiaz Anjum, chief executive NTDC, Haji Shabbir Ahmed, federal commissioner for Indus Water Jamat Ali Shah, vice president Nespk Tariq Mehdi and senior officials.
The minister told newsmen that according to the information given by Wapda the breakdown occurred due to sudden surge in a 500 kV grid circuit. At that time one other circuit from Tarbela to Lahore was under maintenance.
This resulted in transmission bottleneck to transmit about 4700MW power from Tarbela and Ghazi Barotha resulting in cascade tripping of power plants.
Ruling out the possibility of sabotage, he stated that according to the information received so far the breakdown occurred due to a technical fault in the Barotha-Gatti transmission line, which triggered tripping leading to collapse of the system.
He stated that during the breakdown, the situation was also closely monitored by the Prime Minister who also ordered an inquiry report within 48 hours. He stated that the Ministry of Water & Power has also formed an independent inquiry committee to examine the report of departmental inquiry by Wapda.
The Government will wait for the findings of the inquiry committee constituted by the Ministry of Water and Power and Wapda for identifying the cause behind the major breakdown, he added.
Commenting on some news reports that there was a likelihood of load shedding, he categorically stated that enough power is available and there is no likelihood of any load shedding. Chairman Wapda said on the occasion that the present generation capacity is around 13500MW, which is sufficient to meet the requirements of the country.
The minister said that restoration of power is an arduous task and he compliments the engineers, staff and workers of Wapda for restoring power in the shortest possible time.
He said that while those who have worked for the restoration would be rewarded, strict action will be taken against those found responsible in anyway involved in this incident. Earlier, member (power) Anwar Khalid briefed the meeting about a comprehensive augmentation plan for improvement in transmission system.
Giving details of the plan, he said that 12 projects of 500KVA and 220KVA transmission lines have been completed at a cost of Rs 14 billion while work on 18 projects at the cost of Rs 35 billion are being executed which will be completed in the next two years.
Apart from this, work on 163 grid stations involving extension, augmentation and conversion have also been completed at the cost of Rs 4 billion. This, he said will enable transmission system to improve its capacity to carry 15000MW by December 2006.
The minister said that he himself, President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz were closely monitoring the power plants and demand-supply position, and had assured that necessary funds would be released as the Government was keen not only to increase power generation but also ensure uninterrupted power supply to the people.