This is apropos a Business Recorder op-ed “Once again electric utility up for sale – I” carried by the newspaper on Saturday. The writer, Farhat Ali, appears to have raised a key point about the power sector by arguing, among other things, that “… there’s hope on the horizon. In previous decades, many mature and emerging markets migrated well from public-owned power sector to private-owned power sector in an environment which is still strongly characterised by market dynamics of price and quality of service. Although its replication in Pakistan is extremely challenging, it is doable in phases.”

Unfortunately, however, the writer has not explained how this task is doable in Pakistan. According to him, it is doable in phases. What are these phases and what would they entail for the consumers in particular. In my view, not only is power theft by unscrupulous people an easy way to have power bills of much less amounts against the electricity they have actually consumed, it is an avenue of making money through stolen power supply. There exists a culture of power theft not only in Karachi but across the country. Successive government have, in fact, promoted this abominable culture.

BEHZAD KHAN (KARACHI)

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020