Officials behind last year's countrywide power outage to face music: minister.

HYDERABAD -- Federal Minister for Energy Khurram Dastagir Khan said on Thursday that in an internal enquiry into the October 2022's countrywide breakdown, Nepra had found that 26-year-old conductors were used in the system by the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) in 2019, which led to the incident.

Nepra was finalising the probe against those responsible for the fiasco, he said while speaking to journalists at the inauguration of 500kV Thar-Matiari transmission line here at a local hotel. The handing over of power distribution companies to the provinces had been started, he added.

Present at the inauguration were NTDC Managing Director Dr Rana Abdul Jabbar Khan, Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) CEO Muzaffar Abbasi, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz Sindh president Shah Mohammad Shah and others.

The federal minister praised the NTDC that it had done a miracle by completing the transmission line in a record time and saving Rs1bn in that vital project initiated in 2017 at a cost of Rs21bn.

He said the 500kV line would be connected with the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) part of the Matiari-Lahore project. He said the production of 1,980MW electricity from Thar coal project had also started.

The transmission line was to be completed three to four years ago, but the government did not spend a single dollar on the indigenous production of energy, he said and stated that the PML-N government proved that Thar coal could produce cheaper electricity.

The federal minister said foreign exchange was to be saved through that indigenous coal-based energy production in that project. He said concerned organisations completed it in three to five month as per the prime minister's directives, which was indeed a positive sign and it also reflected on the potential and capacity of the NTDC.

He said that line would transmit power generated through Thar's coal to the rest of the country. 'Now coal of Sindh will play its role in Pakistan's development,' he said.

He said it was a Rs20bn project for which the NTDC completed 220km-long transmission line between Matiari and Tharparkar.

He said a Pakistani company produced locally the same specific conductors used in that line, which showed indigenisation as well although some had to be imported from China, while another company produced wires. Not only that but the pylons, which were to be imported, were being manufactured locally, he added.

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