Minister suspects ‘foreign hand’ as power supply fully restored

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Energy Khurram Dastgir has claimed that power has been fully restored across the country 22 hours after the national grid collapsed.

Khurram Dastgir, speaking at a news conference in Islamabad on Tuesday morning, said the government will also look into whether foreign hands were involved in the nationwide power outage.

However, the energy minister stated that there would be limited load-shedding in the country over the next two days.

He said sufficient fuel was available to run the thermal power plants. He was of the view that routine load-shedding was being carried out in the country. Dastgir said the power transmission system remained safe during the breakdown. He said the last govt did not invest in the power system.

The minister said that Karachi needed 1100MW of power which will be supplied soon. Power will be restored soon in Karachi. Nuclear plants needed two to three days while coal power plants required 48 hours to start.

He said hacking through the internet needed to be investigated, however, there were few chances of foreign interference through the internet. Dastgir said only Lahore Matiari Line had a protection system.

He further told reporters that it was a technical issue due to which the breakdown occurred.