Power breakdown plunges entire Pakistan into darkness.

ISLAMABAD -- Entire Pakistan was plunged into darkness Monday morning, following a major power breakdown in the national grid, which has apparently resulted from the government's energy-saving move. To save foreign exchange and for fuel conservation, some of the power plants are being temporarily shut down during night time, which backfired on Monday, when the systems were turned on in the morning, frequency variation and voltage fluctuation occurred in the southern parts of the country thus causing the nationwide power breakdown. This nation-wide outage affected the entire country including Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar and Islamabad. In January 2021, there was also a countrywide power breakdown, which had plunged the entire country into darkness, again in October 2022, partial outages occurred which had pushed Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Quetta, Multan, and Faisalabad, and other areas into darkness.

The relevant authorities had attributed the breakdown to a technical fault in the system. Taking serious notice of the power breakdown, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered a high-level probe into the outage. 'Why did this power crisis emerge in the country,' the premier asked the power minister to furnish a report and fix the responsibilities. While addressing on the national TV, Minister for Power Division Engineer Khurram Dastgir explained that the transmission system had tripped due to unusual fluctuation in the voltage of the national grid. The electricity was being restored in different parts of the country in a gradual manner and 'hopefully it will be fixed com pletely tonight, he added.

The Minister said the entire transmission system was safe despite such a massive power breakdown. A power plant located in the Uch area was functional, and power supply to some areas of Balochistan and Southern Punjab had already been restored. The Minister said partial power supply to Karachi had also been started through Thar Coal Power plants. He said the NTDC had been given the instructions to freely switch on any power plant, including the expensive power generation unit, to meet the demand.

The Minister said a three-member investigation committee has been constituted to probe the matter. The prolonged outage that had pushed almost the entire country into darkness and the system was not fully restored even after 15 hours of breakdown. Meanwhile, during a briefing to Federal Minister for Power Division, Khurram Dastagir, an official of the...