"The electricity supply to the industrial sector has improved by 10 percent in 2015 against 2014, although there has been no improvement in losses, recovery and generation. There has been a meagre increase of 1.5 percent in power generation against that in demand by 7.5 percent in 2015. Only better management on the supply side has saved the government's skin from the pubic wrath, otherwise its performance in the power sector has been equally bad during 2015, as it was in 2014," analyst said.
They said, "Meanwhile, the burden of circular debt has kept haunting throughout 2015 amidst an increase in receivables by 14 percent, but the payables have remained flat because of imposition of surcharges over and above the tariff."
They also pointed a poor collection by the power sector throughout the 2015 though they hardly have any convincing answer to a query as to why the public has abstained from staging mammoth rallies and protests against the power outages throughout 2015. It is understood that State Minister for Water and Power Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali had said in his recent media interaction that industrial and industrial-mix feeders were now enjoying zero outage following the government's effective policies ensuring increased power generation and improved transmission system.
The minister said, "The overall outage duration has also been reduced from the 18 long hours in the past to only six hours in cities and eight hours in the rural areas. However, electricity is suspended to areas with huge line losses and excessive power theft, for long duration."
The government claimed adding 1,565 megawatts to the system by commissioning the 425 megawatt Nandipur, 400 megawatt UCH-II and 747 megawatt Guddu, but the analysts claimed otherwise. They said their operations have been intermittent despite attaining commercial operation state. "Even the government has failed to shift the benefit of the lowest oil prices to consumers," they mentioned.
It is assumed that the government has failed to show any achievement on the generation side throughout 2015 as a number of electricity units produced in 2015 have remained 96 billion against 94.5 billion in 2014, a mere increase of 1.5 percent. It is said the power demand has risen by 7.5 percent in 2015, which means the power generation can never keep pace even with the level of demand. "As a result, the level of shortage has sustained at its earlier level of 2014," analysts added.
It is also claimed that the receivables of all distribution companies have increased by 14 percent in 2015 to Rs 675 billion against Rs 593 billion in 2014 and inevitably put a smile on the face of the World Bank. "But the payables have steadily remained to Rs 300 billion in 2015 due to the imposition of a surcharge of Rs 3.63 per unit over and above the tariff for the industrial sector," they added.
Comments
Comments are closed.