ISLAMABAD -  The government Tuesday admitted in the Senate that the current power shortfall has reached up to 6000 mega watts and forced load-shedding was going on because of this deficit in the demand and supply of the electricity.

State Minister of Water and Power Abid Sher Ali made this admission before the upper house while replying a question about the government’s plans to manage power outages in the coming month of Ramzan.

The electricity shortfall up to 6000MW has resulted in 6 to 18 hours loads-shedding in the urban and rural areas of the country at a time when temperature has risen up to 47 degrees Celsius.

According to government’s claims, the electricity demand has reached close to 19,000MW while power supply is up to 13,000MW and the gap was filled through scheduled and unscheduled load-shedding.

However, the state minister hoped that the deficit would decrease in the first week of May as 2500MW electricity would be added to the national grid. He said that issues arising out in Nandipur Power Plant, Chasma Nuclear Power Plant and under-construction Bikki Power Plant were being resolved to add more power to the system. Nandipur Power Plant is being transferred on to the gas, he added.

The state minister also informed the house that load-shedding would be managed during Ramzan as per previously adopted policy which will be notified by the Ministry of Water and Power before the commencement of the holy month. Last year, no load-shedding was carried during the Sehar and Iftar timings and the ministry will take all possible steps to provide maximum relief to consumers during this month, he added.

Separately, Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani informed the house that Prime Minister as per his commitment had issued a circular to all ministers, ministers-in-charge and federal secretaries asking them to give priority to the parliamentary business. The PM has reiterated its earlier direction to give priority to the parliamentary business, the chair said while quoting the circular. The circular asked each ministry to appoint a focal person, not below the officer of joint secretary, to deal with the parliamentary business and that person shall be responsible for any lapses while dealing with this business.

The house also discussed the motion moved by senators Azam Khan Swati and Sirajul Haq to discuss the recent price hike in basic food items, which is severely affecting financial position of the poor. The lawmakers came down hard on the government for recent surge in the prices of some vegetables and other food items, including chicken. He said that the prices of food items were going out of the buying power of the poor as well as downtrodden classes.

Some government lawmakers termed the criticism uncalled for and said that the situation had improved as Javed Abbasi and Nehal Hashmi of the ruling PML-N defended the government.

Commerce Minister Khurram Dastagir Khan, while concluding the debate on price hike, said the prices of 53 food items were being monitored in 76 markets of 40 cities of the country. The prices of food items are being controlled through National Price Monitoring Committee at the federal level and the district price committees at the provincial level, he said.

There is an overall increase of 3.8 per cent in the prices of food items, the minister said. He said that only prices of 6 items out of 53 had increased till April 13, the prices of 15 items had decreased while process of 32 items remained stable. He admitted that there was unreasonable surge in tomato prices by the end of March but it had now come down with the effective measures of the government. Broadly there is stability in the prices of food items, he concluded.