LAHORE - Special arrangements have been made to control electricity fluctuation and tripping, as more than 600 trolley transformers will be available to cope with constraints in power transmission in Lesco jurisdiction during Ramazan.

The 12-member task force will monitor the loadshedding positions in every circle while complaint cells will also be established. The government is vigorously executing hydel, gas and coal projects to overcome energy shortage in the country.

Addressing a press conference here at Lesco head office on Tuesday, Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali said there will be no loadshedding during Saher and Iftar timings in Ramazan-ul-Mubarak. He said electricity is being supplied to industrial sector without any interruption.

He said huge quantity of electricity is being added to the national grid after every couple of months, beside establishing new grid stations to provide electricity connections to all applicants.

He said the transmission lines of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) have been upgraded, as 274km long new transmission lines have been laid down, which would be capable of transmitting 2,310MVA additional electricity.

Moreover, 29 new grid stations have been set up in Lesco jurisdiction while 65 grid stations were upgraded from 66kv to 100kv.

He said that there would be zero loadshedding across Pakistan by March 2018, except for those areas where people did not pay their electricity bills and power theft ratio is high. He said that with fast completion of energy projects, initiated by the incumbent government, loadshedding duration had substantially been reduced from 12 hours in 2013 to four hours in cities and six hours in rural areas currently.

He said the government has exempted the industrial sector from power outages. He said it is the vision of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to end loadshedding in the country and the day is not far when this dream would be materialised.

He said electricity from Sahiwal Coal Power Project would be added to the system by next month. There are some regions in the country with zero power outages, he claimed.

The minister of state said the PML-N government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, took up the issue of loadshedding on priority and initiated various mega projects, including Neelum-Jhelum hydel power project. He said work on tunnels in Neelum-Jhelum Power Project has been completed, adding Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would visit the site and inaugurate the project.