Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Chief Minister, Ali Amin Gandapur, took action to restore power in Dera Ismail Khan by personally entering a grid station on Wednesday. He introduced his own schedule for power cuts, limiting outages to 12 hours a day.
The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government announced on its X account that no area would have power outages longer than 12 hours. Gandapur also instructed all lawmakers to visit grid stations in their areas to make sure this new schedule was enforced.
Before this change, many areas in the province were facing extremely long power cuts, sometimes lasting up to 22 hours each day. Last month, Energy Minister Awais Leghari said that power cuts based on revenue were necessary.
These cuts were meant for areas with high electricity theft and poor bill payment. Feeders with losses between 20 to 80 percent were having power cuts of 15-16 hours to help reduce the strain on the economy.
In September of the previous year, ministers from the caretaker government announced a crackdown on electricity theft. They revealed that power distribution companies in Peshawar, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Quetta, and Azad Jammu and Kashmir were suffering losses as high as 60%.
During a press conference, Chief Minister Gandapur complained that the federal government owed the provincial government around Rs1,600 billion in dues and revenues.
He mentioned that the federal government had asked for time to review the power system and sought support from the provincial government. However, Gandapur stated that there had been no response from Energy Minister Leghari. As a result, he declared that the province would handle the situation on its own.
Gandapur also outlined his future policy. He stressed that Wapda’s assets should not be damaged because they are funded by taxpayers. He announced that no power cuts beyond 12 hours would be allowed at any feeder. Lawmakers were tasked with ensuring this by personally monitoring the situation.
He addressed the police as well, telling the KP police chief that no cases should be registered against anyone on Wapda’s request. Gandapur emphasized that the KP police should act fairly and not feel obligated to Wapda amidst the ongoing injustices.
This move by Gandapur aims to provide some relief to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa who have been suffering from long power cuts. By reducing the maximum duration of outages and ensuring lawmakers are actively involved, the chief minister is trying to improve the situation and make the power supply more stable for residents.
