A questionable approach

Speaking at a consultative group meeting in Islamabad, last Thursday, a representative of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) said what many have already been saying: that the new rental power plants are too expensive and inefficient. It also explains, at least partly, why the government has announced its intention to increase power rates by 17 percent after the unscheduled power cuts are stopped.
Wapda may have enhanced its generation capacity, but the people are being forced to pay for it through their noses. A tragic example of poor people being driven to desperation by exorbitant power rates, is that of a man who tried to commit self-immolation (he sustained 90 percent burns) this week because, as per his statement to the police, he could not pay his electricity bill and, in frustration, tried to take his own life. The business community is restive, too, since the cost of doing business, already the highest in the region, has been rising ceaselessly.
Faced by a sudden crisis earlier this year, the government apparently acted in haste, and took the easiest route of installing rental thermal power plants which, especially furnace oil-based ones as opposed to gas-fed thermal power units, are extremely costly. The plan was to generate an additional 1200MW of electricity from those plants. Yet the crisis has only aggravated. The story of expensive rental plants is reminiscent of an episode from the ruling PPP's previous tenure when it brought in several Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to help meet the power deficit.
The generation increased substantially, in fact over and above the national requirement at that point in time, but the agreed rate of purchase was too high. It led to a prolonged dispute between the IPPs and Wapda, with the latter insisting to renegotiate the agreed power tariff and the former refusing to give ground. It took a long time and international intervention to end the dispute.
As the government awaits the commissioning of new power generation facilities that, it says, will help it tide over the shortages by the year-end, it must improve efficiency through conservation and reduction of line losses.
Notably, it has been at least a year since the Prime Minister announced his plan to distribute energy-saver bulbs. Still, it has not moved beyond the talk shops. At Thursday's meeting, the Pepco representative called for an early implementation of the plan, pointing out that it could save more than 1,100 MW - about the same volume of energy the new rental power plants were to generate.
Then, there is the issue of staggering line-losses, that in the case of Karachi, run as high as 40 percent, mostly on account of thefts. If the government could control leakages and thefts alone, a large part of the problem would stand resolved. There is an obvious need for all concerned to put their act together and improve efficiency.