By Himangi Jayasundere
Minister of Power and Energy, Karu Jayasuriya on Thursday announced that the power cuts will be completely lifted on May 15, 34 days ahead of his self imposed deadline of 180 days.

"We are making a pledge to the nation that we will not allow the country to be in darkness again, unless there is some kind of sabotage" Minister Jayasuriya said adding that ‘effective measures’ have been taken to prevent a recurrence of the black outs.

On taking office the minister pledged to solve the energy problem within 180 days.

‘Emergency, medium and long term’ measures have improved the total capacity of the national grid and it has also created an excess of 200 MW, he said.

The current total capacity of the national grid is 1600 MW, while the demand is 1400 MW. The minister said that the excess 200 MW hopes to accommodate investors, the growing number of industries and consumers. Despite the improvement in the generation capacity the nine month long power cut will have to extend for another five days due to technical reasons he said.

He pointed out that at the time the UNP handed over its reigns to the last government the supply capacity of the national grid had been 1359 MW, the demand 848 MW with a surplus of 511 MW.

In December 2001 when the UNP came back to power the supply capacity of the national grid was 1200, demand 1400 and deficit 200 MW.

"Although the rain helped the hydro reservoir levels have increased only by 35% and 65% is yet to fill".

The national grid currently receives 240 MV of emergency power and this will be increased to 300 MW soon, he said.

Meanwhile the minister said that repairs have been completed on the GT7 power plant and test runs were currently being conducted by some Italian experts. The non functioning of this plant was one of the main reasons that contributed to the power crisis the minister said pointing out that it provided 10% of the country’s power requirement through the generation of 115 MW.

"It was merely a stack of iron when we took over". He said that there was a $ 500,000 performance loan involved and they had a choice between either resorting to legal action or throwing Rs. 3100 m away and spending another Rs. 3100m. But instead they held negotiations with the Italian government and the company involved, resulting in the recent repairs and the plant becoming operational soon.