The Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) will convert all mixed feeders into dedicated ones to ensure continuous power supply to the industry. Lesco Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Saleem said while he was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Monday.
They discussed at the meeting include: out of proportion longer hour power cuts in industrial units, unscheduled load-shedding, wrong and over-billing, new connections, transformers theft and awareness campaign for conservation of energy. They were agreed on that the LCCI Vice President Mian Abuzar Shad will be interacted with Lesco in future.
The Lesco chief said that segregation of domestic and industrial feeders would be done afresh as per the list to be provided by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. He said that all those feeders would be converted into industrial ones wherever there is 80 per cent consumption is by the industry and rest goes to domestic.
He said work on identification and conversion would be started from Tuesday. He said that the Lesco was also ready to come up with staggering holidays formula for various industrial sectors but the LCCI would have to give a workable schedule for the purpose. He said that for being a distribution company, Lesco should not be blamed for any sort of load-shedding as it is selling whatever it gets from the national grid. The Lesco is getting 1400MW against a demand of 2600MW.
Over the issue of over-billing, the Lesco said, "we have constituted a team of dedicated officers to look into the issues of wrong and over- billing." Giving a clean chit to industry, the Lesco chief said that there is no pilferage by the industry at all as whenever there is such an incidence the industry itself brings into limelight.
To a question about cumbersome procedure for issuance of new transformers in the wake of theft, the Lesco chief said that electricity would be provided to the affected industry without any delay and the paper work would be completed in due course. Speaking on the occasion, the LCCI President Farooq Iftikhar said that there is unscheduled load shedding going on in Lahore, which varies from 12 to 14 hours a day. There is hardly a chance that electricity is available for more than two consecutive hours in working days.
He said that Load shedding not only halts the production process but also increases the cost of production because shifting to generators fuelled by diesel is hardly affordable to anyone. He said that such scenario not only hurt the industrial sector but also adversely affects the associate industries, which add to the worries of industrialists for survival as well as labours for employability. He said that Lesco management committee must be activated to make certain decisions on sector-wise load management. Moreover, LCCI must be given due representation in this committee.
The LCCI President said that the electricity load shedding should be equally done in all parts of the province. Unlike Karachi, Islamabad and Multan, Lahore is being subjected to power cuts for comparatively longer hours. He said that Lesco still needs to do a lot to minimise the distribution losses and plug the pilferage.
Although Lesco's overall performance is much better than other Discos but there is always a room for improvement. He proposed that the electricity rates are to be determined as per the performance and efficiency of the particular Discos. The cost of inefficiency of certain Discos should not be borne by those areas or users who are compliant and responsible.
He said that although Lesco claims high about recovery but facts like Punjab government, which is the defaulter of Rs 6 billions, Railways Rs 843 million, WASA Rs 548 million, CDGL Rs 404 million, Local bodies Rs 3,511 million etc, arise a lot of questions. Farooq Iftikhar said that Lesco also needs to launch electricity saving campaign in Lahore to create awareness among the consumers about the use of energy. Consumers should be educated for using energy efficient electric gadgets.