Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has constituted a high-powered committee to resolve the issue of unscheduled power outages in the country.
The committee, to be headed by Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, will find an out-of-the-box solution to end the unscheduled electricity cuts, Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Pakistan's power shortfall has now reached 5,000 MW. The country generates 13,240 MW against a peak demand of 18,065 MW.
The prime minister said that the government was aware of the problems being faced by people due to power shortage.
The country has witnessed protests over the lack of electricity.
In July, two people were killed and 30 injured in a pitched battle between police and locals who were upset over acute electricity shortage in a town in Punjab province.
Pakistan has been facing severe power cuts problems for the last couple of days.
Last Thursday, media reported that power cuts continued in several cities and towns in all four provinces of the country despite the government's assurances not to resort to load-scheduling during the month of Ramadan.
Protests were held on August 4 in many cities against the power outages despite government assurances of uninterrupted power supply, especially at suhour (the pre-dawn meal before the fast begins) and iftar (the ritual of ending the fast in the evening), media reports said.
The power cuts lasted 12 to 18 hours in most cities, and even for 20 hours at some places, forcing people to scramble around in the dark for the pre-fast meal.
Larkana town of Sind observed a protest shutdown, with all business and commercial establishments and even petrol stations closed. Resentment was also brewing in other towns such as Hyderabad, Mirpur Khas, Nawabshah and Sukkur.
In Punjab province, long hours of outages have been reported last week from Lahore, Multan, Faislabad, Gujranwala and Sargodha, while in Balochistan electricity remained truant most of the day.
Cities in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province also suffer from long power cuts.
