The industrial power consumers have criticized National Power Control Centre (NPCC) for shifting their load to the far off distribution companies (DISCOs) and causing low voltage supply to their mills. Especially, the industrial units located on the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (FESCO) are facing acute problem of low voltage, causing harm to their operations besides technical faults to the machines.
They have pointed out that the NPCC shifts their load to Multan Electric Power Company (MEPCO) from FESCO as and when there is huge load on supply line due to excessive use of air conditioners. However, the long distance of industrial units from the MEPCO region causes the problem of low voltage that ultimately leads to production hiccups and machinery faults.
According to these industrial sources, the matter has been taken up with the National Transmission & Despatch Company (NTDC), which has expressed its inability to deal with the situation, as the control for shifting of load rests with the NPCC. Industry sources said no one has access to the NPCC, as it controls the load without any pressure and hindrance, which is good in one way but bad on the other, as the industry has no appropriate forum to get addressed the problem. A good number of industrial units on the FESCO network were clueless about the fate of their production cycle during the Eid holidays, as a large number of industrial units pay overtime to their labour for 24/7 production. They said they have no option but to wait for the start of next week when both the public and private sector entities would resume operations and address their issue.
Meanwhile, some 22 percent devaluation of Pak rupee against US dollar and 18 percent increase in oil prices internationally has made the use of Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) as a fuel to fire the Captive Power Plants (CPPs), as the prices of RLGN have jumped to Rs 1601 per MMBTU from earlier Rs 1100 per MMBTU.
The industry sources said the industrial production would be at halt throughout the Eid holidays due to the high cost of RLNG on the one hand and low voltage supply from the NTDC network on the other.
They have urged the new government to take stock of the situation and resolve such procedural issues on priority, as a good number of industrial units are directly linked to exports. Already, they pointed out, Pakistan is paying through nose due to abnormal trade deficit and the country could not come of woe until the government is serious in resolving the industry, particularly export-oriented one.
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