Pakistanis to have 'uninterrupted' power supply during holy month

LAHORE: The National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) has committed to ensuring uninterrupted power supply across the country during the holy month of Ramadan, which will begin in mid-March.

The government-backed power transmission company, as per the directives of Managing Director Engr Dr Rana Abdul Jabbar Khan, continues its comprehensive maintenance program of transmission lines and stations of NTDC network for uninterrupted supply of electricity to the people.

The NTCD spokesperson told the media on Wednesday that under the maintenance programme, washing, cleaning, replacement of disc insulators and other necessary activities are being carried out by the respective NTDC formations. These activities, he added, would increase the reliability of transmission lines and grid stations and help ensure uninterrupted power supply during the holy month of Ramadan.

Within the framework of this program, outages in circuits of 500kV and 220kV transmission lines in the southern region were also used.

During these stops, he added, cleaning, washing of insulators, adjustment of nuts/bolts of line fittings and replacement of disc insulators with RTV coated disc insulators were carried out in the Red, Yellow and Blue phases.

The spokesperson detailed that a total of 73,493 disc insulators were washed and cleaned at 459 locations, 9,804 disc insulators were replaced at 55 locations, more than 688 clamps and 570 nuts and bolts were installed, two chains of damaged disc insulators (132 kV CB E5Q1 and E7Q1 CB Yellow Phase) along with two strings of good 132 kV CB E7Q1 EMCO-Make disc insulators (four strings in total) were also replaced at the 220 kV grid station Jhampir-1.

The general manager (Asset Management-South) is supervising the maintenance programme, he said, adding that the NTDC managing director appreciated the performance of the transmission line divisions concerned and urged them to complete the maintenance work as per schedule.