The country is still afflicted with massive power crisis as the juggernaut power shortfall persists at 4600 Megawatts, Geo News reported Sunday.

Following the protest demos against protracted and unannounced schedule of load shedding, Power and Water Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf announced cosmetic step of reducing two hours from the schedule.

Legal Adviser of Wapda Muneer Ahmed Khan told Geo News that the federal minister arrived at Power Control Center established in Islamabad and announced to monitor the load shedding of all the cities.

Raja Pervaiz conducted emergency negotiations with World Bank, oil companies and Petroleum officials and reduced the span of power load shedding to 9 hours in Lahore and 11 hours in the suburban areas.

DG Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Muhammed Khalid said the supply of 1000 MW will start to pour from various shut down power plants including Hubco and Kot Addu by April 15 and with the arrival of new power plants by June/July, the shortfall will dwindle to 2000 MWs, which will push the power outages span to 6 to 8 hours.

The load shedding span in Islamabad and Rawalpindi is 4 to 6 hours and in Karachi, the span is 5 to 6 hours.

According to sources in Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC), the gap between power demand and supply stands is 350 MWs.

The interior Sindh areas including Hyderabad, Larkana, Nawabshah, Ghotki, Badin, Thatta, Sukkar and Mirpur Khas continue to be afflicted with prolonged load shedding spans.

The various cities of Southern Punjab including Multan are facing 10 to 12 hours of load shedding and the rural areas 16 hours.

The urban areas of Faisalabad are being wracked by 8-hour power outages and 18 hours in the rural areas.

Peshawar’s urban areas are suffering 12 to 14-hour of load shedding and 18 to 20 hours of load shedding in rural areas.

The protracted and unannounced spans of load shedding have put the citizens on racks in various districts including Mardan, Kohat, Noshehra, Swabi and Mansehra.