ISLAMABAD — The Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) has announced a schedule of planned power outages across parts of Rawalpindi, Attock and Chakwal for Friday, citing routine maintenance and development work on its transmission and distribution network.
According to an IESCO spokesperson, electricity supply will be suspended in specific feeders across the Rawalpindi Cantt, Attock, Chakwal and GSO circles at staggered times through the day, with restoration expected once maintenance crews complete the scheduled work.
Circle-wise breakdown
In Rawalpindi Cantt Circle, the company said power will remain suspended from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. in areas fed by the Sagri and Kallar Syedan feeders.
In Attock Circle, supply will be cut from 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. in localities served by the Hussain Abad, Lala Zar and Industrial Estate Bather feeders — an outage window that runs longer than in the other circles and takes in at least one designated industrial area.
In Chakwal Circle, electricity will remain suspended from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. on the Jamal Wal, Mengan, Karyala and KSM Unit-3 feeders.
IESCO also listed separate maintenance work under its GSO Circle, which covers Taxila, Kahuta and adjoining areas. The company said interruptions at the Rawat-II, AWC HMC Taxila, Sangjani-Burhan, Kahuta City-Palandri and New Wah-Bahtermore grid stations — all operating at the 132kV transmission level — would affect surrounding localities at varying times between 8:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Official statement
IESCO apologized for the inconvenience to consumers and said power supply would be restored ahead of schedule wherever maintenance work is completed early, an assurance the utility routinely includes with its outage notices. The notification did not specify the total number of consumers affected, nor did it name an official beyond the company spokesperson — consistent with the format IESCO uses for its recurring maintenance advisories.
Public impact
For households and small businesses on the listed feeders, Friday’s schedule means several hours without grid electricity during working hours. Similar circle-wise outage notices have been issued by IESCO on a near-weekly basis through July and into August, covering different combinations of feeders across Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Attock, Chakwal and Jhelum on a rotating basis, according to the company’s past advisories.
The extended window in Attock Circle — up to seven hours on the Hussain Abad, Lala Zar and Industrial Estate Bather feeders — is likely to be felt most by small manufacturing units and traders operating in the named industrial estate, who typically depend on grid supply for daytime production. IESCO’s outage notices do not carry compensation or exemption provisions for commercial or industrial consumers, since scheduled maintenance is treated separately from load-shedding under the company’s service framework.
Consumers in the affected areas are advised to plan around the stated windows. IESCO has said in previous notices that restoration can occur earlier than scheduled once work is finished, but has also cautioned that timelines can extend if additional faults are discovered during maintenance.
Background: IESCO’s role and oversight
IESCO is one of several former WAPDA-owned distribution companies, or DISCOs, that supply electricity across Pakistan, alongside utilities including LESCO, FESCO, GEPCO, MEPCO, PESCO, HESCO, QESCO and SEPCO. It distributes power across Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Attock, Chakwal and Jhelum districts, and its tariffs, service standards and safety performance are regulated by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) under the federal Power Division.
NEPRA’s latest Performance Evaluation Report for distribution companies, covering fiscal year 2024-25, found that Pakistan’s DISCOs collectively incurred losses of roughly Rs472 billion during the year because of transmission and distribution losses and shortfalls in bill recovery, alongside 118 reported fatalities across the sector on safety grounds. IESCO was named among five DISCOs — along with GEPCO, FESCO, LESCO and MEPCO — that the regulator said performed relatively better and stayed close to their assigned recovery and loss targets, while PESCO, QESCO, SEPCO, HESCO and K-Electric lagged behind NEPRA’s reliability benchmarks, the report said.
Wider context: the privatization drive
Friday’s outage notice comes as IESCO itself moves through a federal privatization process. The Privatisation Commission Board recommended in late July that the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation approve restructuring plans for IESCO, together with FESCO and GEPCO, as the government works to sell majority ownership and management control of the three DISCOs to private investors. The deadline for submitting Expressions of Interest for the IESCO transaction is September 7, 2026, following earlier deadlines already set for FESCO and GEPCO.
The privatization push forms part of Pakistan’s broader economic reform program under its ongoing arrangement with the International Monetary Fund, which has pressed successive governments to reduce circular debt, cut transmission losses and improve bill recovery across the power sector. Officials at the Privatisation Commission have said the restructuring plans for the three DISCOs are based on audited financial statements as of March 31, 2026, and are meant to make the utilities commercially attractive to prospective buyers while maximizing value for the federal government.
Routine maintenance outages such as the one announced for Friday are not expected to affect the ownership transaction directly, but they point to the state of ageing feeder and grid infrastructure that any incoming private operator would inherit. Sector officials and analysts have repeatedly cited deferred maintenance, transformer overloads and high technical and commercial losses as long-standing constraints on Pakistan’s distribution network — the rationale successive governments have offered for bringing in private capital and management expertise.
What happens next
IESCO has not indicated whether Friday’s schedule is tied to a specific one-time development project or forms part of a longer maintenance cycle; the company’s outage notices are typically issued a day in advance and apply only to the feeders and time windows specified. Residents and businesses in the affected circles can expect further such advisories in the coming weeks as maintenance work continues.
On the ownership front, the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation is expected to take up the restructuring plans for IESCO, FESCO and GEPCO following the Privatisation Commission Board’s recommendation, with formal bidding for IESCO to follow the September 7 EOI deadline. NEPRA, meanwhile, continues to monitor DISCO performance under its multi-year tariff framework as part of its periodic evaluation of the sector’s financial and operational health.
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