The Pakistan Power Sector is always in the news – primarily, for its perceived and actual inefficiency and the consumer-end tariffs that most cannot digest. The people would want immediate amelioration of their problems.
Most of the time, it is forgotten that consumer indiscipline too is a serious issue to contend-with and that there are other externalities that do not allow distribution operations to meet the laid down standards etc.
Another facet of the problem that experts highlight could be the long and continued indifference to the ongoing rot. It is also sadly forgotten that the poor DISCOs are required to operate profitably on face of the below par and expensive power generation (all due to inherent problems), the extreme burden of badly negotiated IPPs PPAs, a brittle grid, a lackluster rand a nearly non-professional regulator and the inappropriately meddling governmental entities.
Some experts also liken the situation to the ever mushrooming encroachments in urban areas, which need a near military action to correct but it is forgotten that the military action to correct the wayward DISCOs during 1998-2004 had resulted in a great loss in shape of migrating professionals to the then El-Dorodos of the world.
While accepting whatever has been stated in the preceding paragraph, it is still a fact that the DISCOs are not appropriately functioning and nor are they able to serve their clientele. In order to look towards possible solutions to the morose, there is a need to look into the evolution of the present-day DISCOs.
In 1947, Pakistan inherited 60MWs of power generation and a motley of electricity supplying companies. Of note would be the Camp Bellpur (Camelpur formost) Electric Supply Company for the city which is now known as Attock, the Rawalpindi Electric Power Company (REPCO) for the garrison town, Lahore Electric Supply Company Ltd. – abandoned by its migrating owners (thereafter as a fait accompli taken over by the then Punjab Govt.), the Multan Electric Supply Company (MESCO), the Small Town Electricity Supply Syndicate (STESS) at Muzaffargarh and the extremely efficient and extensive small power stations and electricity supply set-up of the erstwhile Bahawalpur state covering all the towns starting from Sadiqabad to Bahawal Nagar.
The scribe as a young SDO WAPDA visited all of these small power stations in 1974-75 – then taken over by WAPDA. It was heartening to see all of the power houses properly sited in the middle of these towns – allowing for proper voltage and service to the people.
The Bahawalpur state had a near state of art system crafted by a very able Irish superintendent and staff comprising of experienced persons and who had prior knowledge of the works.
Transitioning from Punjab, we saw similar small set-ups in Khairpur, again set-up by the erstwhile Khairpur state, small but abandoned set-ups at Shikarpur and Larkana, a similar but again abandoned set-up at Hyderabad (some parts of the city were referred to as the Paris of the sub-continent before 1947), a small Parsi owned entity at Quetta and the then considered as extremely large – the KESC at Karachi, which had been incorporated as a Company in 1913. It can easily be concluded that barring REPCO, LESCO, MESCO, the Bahawalpur State Electricity System and the KESC at Karachi, all of the other entities were very small and distributing electricity as a novelty rather than as a utility/service.
Pakistan, as a newly independent state, made great strides and handed over the abandoned entities to the Provincial Electricity Departments, which basically were part of the provincial irrigation departments and which, in a way, progressed and prospered under the watchful gaze of the provincial electric inspectorates (operating under the Electricity Act 1910/Electricity Rules 1937).
Thereafter, in 1958, the Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) was set up – basically, with the view to developing both water and power infrastructure in Pakistan, which in the process also took over the operations of the then wards of the provincial electricity departments.
Now WAPDA was operating alongside the likes of Campbellpur Electric Supply Company, the REPCO, the MESCO, STESS and the KESC. These private companies, however, had a serious issue relating to financial outlays. These entities would only invest on areas from where predictable profits could accrue.
Actually, these entities had no appetite to take risks and thus were of no use to the recently independent country.
Consequently, huge swaths of jurisdictional areas were left un-electrified. Incidentally, because of absence of any regulatory over sight, the owners/operators did not feel any requirement to change their policy. Specific to the Colombo plan of the then very dynamic Commonwealth Organization, WAPDA undertook a nationwide village electrification plan when WAPDA extended the existing infrastructure and provided electricity to thousands of villages across the length and width of the country. This nearly doubled the holdings of WAPDA’s power wing, and in fact, became the harbinger of continued effort to bring the facility to the rural areas of Pakistan.
In 1973, these entities, including the KESC, were nationalized and placed under the then Federal Government’s Ministry of Water &Power, which remained as such till 1980-81, when most of these were merged with WAPDA.
The scribe was himself instrumental in the merger of MESCO and the STESS in 1981. With this merger, all of the country barring Karachi was serviced by WAPDA, while the port city and environs including Bela, Uthal, Hub and Winder – small towns of south-eastern Baluchistan, remained serviced by the KESC.
(To be continued tomorrow)
(The writer is President IEEEP)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is President IEEEP
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