Markets across Pakistan will shut at 8:30pm to save on electricity, the National Economic Council decided on Wednesday.

PM Shehbaz Sharif chaired the meeting where this was decided with the chief ministers of Balochistan, Sindh and Punjab. The chief ministers agreed to the proposal.

The government has decided to tell all wedding halls in the capital to close at 10pm and directed that only one dish be served at events.

Energy shortage

Later in the day Minister for Power Khurram Dastgir, while addressing a news conference in Islamabad, said that the government was taking steps to end the energy crisis. “The nation will see a significant decrease in the load shedding from the next month.”

The country is short on approximately 4,000 megawatts (MW). It produces about 22,000MW but about 26,000 MW is needed.

The minister said that 600 MW of coal-produced electricity will be added to the grid by June 15. Karachi’s K2 nuclear power plant will start adding 1,100 MW by the end of this month.

He said the demand for electricity has also increased due to an increase in temperature as the country has witnessed an increase of 25% in temperature from April as compared to last year.

Dastagir said that the government had implemented a policy of zero load-shedding in the industrial sector to save the daily wage earners from the impact of load shedding.

Criticizing the previous government, the minister said that the PTI-led government had not initiated a single power project during its tenure to address the energy crisis.