ISLAMABAD: Electricity load shedding in Pakistan will reduce significantly within the next 10 days, said the country’s power minister Khurram Dastagir on Friday amid power breakdowns of over 12 hours in Pakistan’s rural areas.

Various parts of the country suffered power breakdowns spanning six to 10 hours in urban areas and over 12 hours in rural areas on Thursday, according to Pakistani media.

The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government holds former prime minister Imran Khan and his administration responsible for the power crisis. A couple of days earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif blamed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government for not procuring fuel nor undertaking proper maintenance and repair of power plants.

The PTI denies these accusations and claims the PML-N government is to blame for the lengthy power breakdowns.

Addressing a news conference on Friday, Pakistan’s minister for power followed in the prime minister’s footsteps, saying that inadequate supplies of re-gasified liquefied natural gas (RLNG) and furnace oil were the main reasons for extended power breakdowns in Pakistan.

“We expect to receive some RLNG from the government from May 1,” said Dastagir. “That will improve the situation to some extent,” he said, adding that furnace oil will also be available from May 2.

“We expect that there will be a reduction in loadshedding to a large extent within the next 10 days,” he added.

Dastagir said technical faults in power plants were also causing power breakdowns in the country. The minister said that the government had suspended Eid holidays of employees of power distribution companies to deal with the crisis.

“If it was possible to procure RLNG immediately, if it was possible to procure furnace oil and if we had the resources to do so, we wouldn’t be experiencing this severe loadshedding,” Dastagir said.

He said the petroleum ministry was working on eliminating the time lag to procure additional RLNG.