They said an IMF team has already taken up the issue of power tariff increase during the technical-level talks and has urged a substantial reduction in power sector subsidies in the next budget. The Prime Minister has reportedly expressed his frustration over protracted power outages as the ground situation is totally different from the statistics of demand and generation presented by the Ministry of Water and Power. The Prime Minister's strong displeasure resulted in late night meetings and Minister of Water and Power and Petroleum Minister pulled their socks up with a view to finding a way out to deal with this simmering issue.
The Prime Minister clearly directed the officials concerned to bring down load shedding to 6 hours in urban and 7 hours in rural areas in the next few days. The Prime Minister declared existing level of load-shedding as unacceptable. The Prime Minister was briefed about load management plan for May, June and July. He directed an immediate shift of gas from fertiliser industry to power sector and reduce gas supply to CNG sector partially for an additional 592 MW generation.
The Prime Minister was briefed that an additional 1,000 Megawatt will be added from hydel sources from 11 May, 2014 and by the end of this month an additional 3,500 Megawatts from hydel sources will be added to the system. The Prime Minister directed the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Resources and the Ministry of Water and Power to ensure that fuel shortage issue is resolved in the next few days after addition of 630 MW through additional supply of fuel to Muzaffargarh and Jamshoro power plants. The Prime Minister also directed the authorities to reactivate dormant power stations.
The Prime Minister also directed transportation of fuel via Railway to power houses to avoid leakages, pilferage and corruption. The meeting was attended by Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Information Minster Pervaiz Rashid, Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbassi, Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq, Minister of State for Water & Power Abid Sher Ali, Minister of State for Petroleum Jam Kamal Khan, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Energy Dr Musadiq Malik and other senior officers.