No official has been held responsible for the country-wide power break down late night on February 24 as an inquiry committee constituted on directive of Prime Minister believes “darkness prevailed that night due to technical fault in national grid”.

The four-member enquiry committee constituted to probe into causes of rare prolonged countrywide power breakdown (Sunday night February 24) has finally submitted its initial inquiry report to the Prime Minister’s office. Earlier, immediately after the incident, in pursuance of directives of the Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, water and power ministry formed a four members committee comprising Member Wapda, Qasim Khan, Director Technical, NTDC (Power), Chief Engineer System Protection and Joint Secretary (Power) to inquire into occurrence of massive power break down on late February 24 that hit most parts of the country for several hours.

The committee, headed by Wapda official Qasim Khan, was asked to also point out those responsible for the power breakdown, and submit its report with in seven days to the premier as the committee was constituted on 25 February after the directives of PM. Sources in water & power ministry told that the committee’s report has submitted its report to the PM house where not a single official of National Power Control Centre (NPCC) and NTDC has been held responsible for the blackout which began at 11:45 p.m on late Sunday and lasted for several hours in various parts of the country.

The sources also said that the committee in its bid to hush up the matter has not fixed the responsibility on any official but simply said that hours-long black out was appeared only because of technical fault in national grid as power demand was high while the power generation remained low.The enquiry report has also mentioned that this massive power break down was not countrywide as one unit of Mangla Dam and one of Terbela Dam was found functional at that time because it had supplied electric power to Mardan and Mir Pur areas while other power stations of the country switched off within no seconds after the occurrence of fault in the national grid. Both units of Mangla and Terbela dams had largely supported the power system of the country and save it from heaviest loss.

And, even if both units went off then several hours were required to restore national grid system, all was transpired to this newspaper during an exclusive talk with a senior official at water and power ministry.It is to note here that official water and power ministry from day first has been found harping a note of technical fault at a privately run 1,200 megawatt power plant operated by Hub Power Co. (HUBC), the country’s second-biggest generator which led to colossal black out in major parts of the country.

As a result to which million rupees worth heavy losses incurred due to that rare power break down. However, the enquiry committee constituted by water and power ministry following the directives of PM Raja Pervez Ashraf to probe into the cause of incidence which at the end did not fixed the responsibility on any official despite registering that all this was due to technical fault in the national grid.