The Supreme Court on Monday repeated its previous order but with a minor amendment, issuing notices to provincial Chief Secretaries to give their reaction to purchase of electricity from national grid in bulk and paying the bills through National Finance Commission (NFC) Award besides controlling pilferage and ensuring equitable power supply to consumers in their respective jurisdictions.
The court also sought a detailed report from SSGC and SNGPL on gas supply to Captive Power Plants (CPPs) with accurate figures of electricity purchased by the National Transmission and Distribution Company (NTDC). A three-judge bench led by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry resumed the hearing of a human rights case relating to unprecedented loadshedding in the country.
The bench also issued notice to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Karachi Electricity Supply Company (KESC) to appear before the bench on next hearing and explain the details of generation and supply by the Company in the metropolitan. Salman Akram Raja, the counsel for industrialists of Punjab province, prayed that the current loadshedding schedule was adversely affecting production as well as the labour class. According to him, industries are unable to fulfil even their export agreements. Chief Justice Chaudhry asked him to come up with a formula on how to reduce loadshedding hours for industry; he also issued notice to Nepra and Ogra.
The Supreme Court had asked the Attorney General for Pakistan (AGP) to seek instructions from the Federal and Provincial governments that provinces should purchase electricity in bulk from the national grid to ensure equitable supply to all categories of consumers.
During the course of proceedings, the Managing Director SNGPL submitted that there was a 10 percent incidence of Unaccounted For Gas (UFG), of which 5 percent could be controlled. To which, the Chief Justice observed that if the UFG was not reduced and theft of gas was not controlled then gas companies would not be in a position to supply gas to IPPs and Gencos as per their requirement.
Zargham Eshaq Khan, MD Pepco, apprised the bench that KESC had been purchasing 650 MW from National Transmission And Despatch Company Limited under an agreement on a basket price of Rs 8.81 per unit. The court directed him to submit details of generation capacity and current production of Kanupp, CPPs and IPPs in Karachi, saying KESC must be appreciated for the fact that it was producing own electricity and depending less on the national grid.
Zargham informed the bench that total power generation on June 30, 2013 was 13,392 MW, saying 66 per cent of generation was being supplied to Punjab, 12 per cent to Sindh, 18 per cent to Khyber Pukhtoonkhawa and 8 per cent to Balochistan currently through national grid.
The court asked Pepco to furnish details of all the Independent Power Producers (IPPs), operating on gas or Residual Fuel Oil (RFO) along with their capacity to produce electricity. The court also inquired about the reasons behind a shortfall and asked Pepco to rectify them to achieve the maximum target of electricity generation. The court noted that prima facie it was not difficult to achieve target of power production in the country if there was better management. The bench observed that the federal government was about to announce its energy policy with an object to provide relief to consumers before it adjourned the hearing of case for two weeks.
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