Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) Managing Director Tahir Basharat Cheema has lambasted the Managing Director of Private Power Infrastructure Board (PPIB) for misguiding the Planning Commission regarding its role in power supply and demand situation, well-informed sources told Business Recorder on Thursday.
According to official documents, the PPIB Board, in its meeting on October 3, 2009, advised the Planning Commission to complete a power supply and demand analysis and projections at the earliest so that the portfolio of under-process projects could be reviewed vis-à-vis the projected demand.
"It appears that while taking this decision, the PPIB Board was not fully apprised of the functions and duties of various organisations - the subject issue and about the possible role of Planning Commission," the sources quoted Cheema as saying in a letter sent to the Federal government a couple of weeks ago.
Explaining the matter, the Pepco Managing Director stated that it was seen that under the licence, issued by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC), the central planning, least cost generation and transmission expansion, planning and generation estimates was the responsibility of the Planning Department of the NTDC. Therefore, the activities of load forecasting and the supply-demand analysis was the main responsibility of the NTDC, which had been doing this for years and all the stakeholders were taken on board for this exercise, he said.
According to the Pepco Managing Director, the NTDC has prepared load forecast, both on the basis of regression and power market survey in consultation with the Planning Commission and other stakeholders and has then published the results in a book form, which is issued to the all concerned.
Further, they carried out demand-supply analysis by taking information from the PPIB, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) and other entities. This was a dynamic exercise, which was carried out under various scenarios and under different conditions as well as the developments, which emerged with time, the sources quoted Basharat Cheema as saying.
Consequently, the Planning Commission neither had to carry out this exercise nor it could spare limited resources for this small exercise, he said, adding that if it was done, it would be at the cost of some other important matter and again, it would be done by employing the services of the Planning Department of the NTDC. "This matter should be taken up with the PPIB Board for their re-visit of the whole matter so that the NTDC could do its work, while the Planning Commission can take policy matters, which is its main domain," he concluded.
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