With the start of November, the ongoing power crisis in Pakistan has finally come to an end. According to Raja Parvez Ashraf, Minister for Water and Power, the level of water in the rivers has risen to the normal and no long-term power interruption is expected in the coming months, except in December-January each year, when there will be a canal closure for desisting. Even then, the government has plans for generating thermal power in order to ensure uninterrupted power supply throughout the country.

A different news source, however, revealed that according to Tahir Basharat Cheema, Director General of Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO), the country is still short of 1000 megawatts of electric power and it needs to be managed by load shedding. The shortage of electric power, reported earlier, ran at about 5000 megawatts and it is said to have been covered through an increase in the volume of water in rivers, increased supply of gas to power generators, and reuse of the units closed for annual maintenance work.

According to Raja Parvez Ashraf, the government is working hard to do away with load shedding till December next year. New power plants will be set up and better policies put in effect in order to achieve this goal. Valuable infrastructure is also being developed for importing 1000 megawatts of electric power from Iran. Mr. Ashraf stressed the need for greater investment in water and power projects from the private sector so as to overcome the power problem in the country.