ISLAMABAD – The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Friday slapped a fine of Rs50 million on the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) for its “inability to restore power supply in a timely manner” when the system collapsed in January of last year.
The regulator noted when the power system collapsed on January 9, 2021, the NTDC took 20 hours to restore the system.
In a press release issued here, Nepra said that it had taken serious notice of the incident and constituted an inquiry committee to investigate the matter.
“The committee conducted the said inquiry and presented a detailed report to the authority on the basis of which the authority initiated legal proceedings against the NTDC,” the statement said.
An opportunity of hearing was also granted to the NTDC on January 12, 2022, however, the NTDC failed to provide any satisfactory response and was found guilty of violating the relevant provisions of the grid code. “Therefore, the authority has imposed a fine of Rs50 million on the NTDC,” the statement said.
The regulator also pointed out that it had initiated legal proceedings against the power plants concerned for their “lapses, deficiencies and failure” in relation to the incident. It said this was currently “under process and being dealt separately”.
In January 2021, a major power breakdown had plunged the entire country, including major urban centres such as Karachi, Islamabad, Lahore and Multan, into darkness for up to 22 hours.
The blackout occurred minutes before midnight across the country, and citizens had taken to social media to report outages. As outages hit major cities, mobile and internet services were also affected.
At the time, then energy minister Omar Ayub Khan had attributed the breakdown to a technical fault at the Guddu power station.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/31-Dec-2021/nepra-reduces-electricity-tariff
