ISLAMABAD: Secretary Power Division, Dr Fakhre Alam Irfan has announced that significant reduction in electricity tariff for industrial and domestic consumers is expected by the end of June 2025.
This was revealed as per the minutes of Senate Standing Committee on Power, during discussion on savings from the revised/terminated contracts with IPPs.
“Power has the calculations of impact of net-metering and off-grid consumers. Various steps are being taken to reduce the tariff and by the end of June a significant reduction will be made in the electricity tariff of industry and domestic consumers,” he added.
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On the issue of NTDC, the Chair, Senator Mohsin Aziz observed that technically Power Division is bifurcating the current mandate of the NTDC so for the new companies the Government will hire new people.
The secretary replied that the new company will be a very lean company and will only do contract management and will have very few core staff at managerial level only. He further stated that the mechanism of energy purchase is also going to be changed. Now CPPA-G will not purchase energy and will not sell it to DISCOs. There is a separate wing of system operation in NTDC and a market operation wing in CPPA-G.
The NTDC’s system operation wing and CPPA’s marker operation wing are being combined and a new organization namely Independent System Market Operator (ISMO) has been constituted as an independent body responsible for overseeing both the system operation by merging it with current functions of the Market Operation (MO) of CPPA and the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) of National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) under one roof.
The Secretary further briefed that a well thought out transition plan shall lead the re-restructuring process eliminating the chances of chaos and unrest among employees of NTDC and highest level of efforts have been initiated for stakeholders’ engagement.
The Secretary argued that the Government has learned the lessons from WAPDA’s unbundling and incorporated it into NTDC’s plan. The existing staff of NTDC has nothing to do with all this re-structuring and their rights and jobs are fully secured. The government is adopting the international best practices.
The chair observed that internationally the power purchaser has the option to purchase energy from different companies if that is the objective then it will be a good step. The secretary stated that ISMO will not purchase energy rather it will manage the market as a facilitator and regulator to regulate the deals.
Senator Syed Shibli Faraz stated that since long a full time Head of NTDC has not been appointed so how one can expect an organization with no permanent Head of Department to function effectively.
NTDC is very important organization but it was being run since long with very non-serious approach. He contended that the real thing is the planning of a project as whenever a power plant is installed then its evacuation plan is worked simultaneously in order to work out the capacity payments of that plant.
Senator Shibli Faraz further stated that there should be a think tank inside the Ministry which can think out the pros and cons of every project under planning.
Transmission is one of the most important aspects of this whole supply chain of energy as there are serious question marks as to whether the new restructuring ideas will enhance the efficiency of energy sector or will further complicate it.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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