ISLAMABAD: Minister for Power, Sardar Awais Leghari on Thursday acknowledged that the government is applying revenue based power load shedding in high loss areas to curtail financial losses which will continue in future.
Addressing a press conference with Minister of State for Finance, Ali Pervaiz Malik, Power Minister said that revenue based load shedding would continue until high loss making areas were not cleared and as losses were reduced, uninterrupted supply would be ensured for 24 hours.
Minister maintained that if supply of electricity was uninterrupted in high loss areas, circular debt would hit the roof. He said action would be taken in loss making areas.
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“Ample generation is available for the next four months of summer including generation and transmission. We hope that service delivery will improve in the days to come which will bring down cost of electricity,” he added. Currently, 7,000 MW of electricity is being generated from hydel sources.
Leghari said Discos had unleashed load shedding in those areas also where losses were less than 10 per cent or zero per cent, which was incompetence of power distribution companies.
According to the Minister, he has directed the Power Distribution Companies to improve their overall performance and minimize load-shedding duration.
Minister said he had instructed the Discos to make public details of demand and supply of electricity on daily basis, adding that management of power distribution companies would be replaced with competent personnel.
Commenting on current load shedding, Leghari said high loss feeders, technical faults and electricity theft were major reasons for power outages, adding that system was being revamped gradually to overcome load-shedding.
He said there was a shortfall of 4232MW in the country and high loss feeders were not in a position to bear this shortfall. He said load shedding would be eliminated through ‘Roshan Pakistan’ programme.
“There are 150 loss-making feeders in Punjab, 700 in Sindh, 350 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and around 80 in Balochistan, which will be overhauled,” Leghari continued.
In reply to a question, he said there were a lot of faults in power distribution sector and new Boards of Discos would be in place next week.
In reply to a question, Power Minister said that cases against National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) in Arbitration Courts were due to its weakness.
Responding to another question, Minister said KPK government had promised to minimise losses. A proposal is being formulated to reduce losses and improve power supply in KPK.
Answering another question, Power Minister said that a high level Committee had been constituted to probe allegations surrounding ‘imported coal’ which had been kept away from the Power Division. Ministers for Finance, Defence and Petroleum are members of the Committee, which has started working.
Replying to another question, Power Minister said that government’s net metering policy was in place, however, calculations were being done, adding that at the time of its review, opinion would be sought from the stakeholders.
In his remarks, Minister of State for Finance, Ali Pervaiz Malik said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and President PML(N) Nawaz Sharif were worried about load-shedding in the country and had asked to minimise load-shedding which is being carried out due technical constraints including shortage of workforce and revenue. “Prime Minister’s standing instructions are that people should be given relief, “he said, adding the government should be helped if load-shedding was to be eliminated.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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