MUSHTAQ GHUMMAN
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Water and Power has reportedly failed to reduce power loadshedding as people in urban and rural areas are facing 12 and 18 hours of outages respectively.
Presently, electricity shortfall is hovering around 7000 MW but none of the officials was available to give a real picture of power sector.
Well-informed sources told Business Recorder that main reasons for the unscheduled loadshedding are substantial reduction in recoveries despite inflated billing, flash floods and unmanageable losses.
However, the Ministry of Water and Power which bears the financial burden of one Federal Minister, one Minister of State, Secretary, Additional Secretaries, Joint Secretaries besides an army of officers in Discos, has not undertaken any practical measures to resolve various issues hindering the smooth supply of power to consumers.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had given a free hand to Secretary Water and Power, Mrs. Nargis Sethi, who according to her close aides trusts only in District Management Group (DMG) which is now called Pakistan Administrative Services (PAS). She, however, has failed to deliver.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is already facing a political upheaval, is furious at the performance of the power sector, as the resolution of this sector was a key manifesto promise. Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif, who recommended the name of Mrs. Nargis Sethi as Secretary Water and Power, is now reportedly expressing his annoyance at the current state of affairs.
According to sources, Secretary Water and Power recently acknowledged before a high level meeting presided over by Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif that because of paucity of staff, meter reading of every household was not possible thereby acknowledging that consumers are being over charged- an act of criminal nature.
“Only 50 per cent of meters are being read on a monthly basis. The bills are calculated on a trend basis,” the sources quoted Secretary Water and Power as saying in the meeting.
Mrs Sethi also confirmed that inflated electricity billing is because of elimination of slabs as there has been no change in the electricity tariff for the last one year.
Insiders claim that the elimination of slabs is the part of an understanding with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) which is putting pressure on Islamabad to minimize unnecessary subsidy. The Ministry of Water and Power’s official spokesman was not available for comments on unscheduled loadshedding and estimated billing.
The sources said the Ministry of Water and Power maintains that in order to reduce subsidy there is a need to rationalize power tariffs.
A number of consultative meetings were held between the Ministries of Water and Power and Finance. The matter was also deliberated during the National Power Policy discussion in the CCI meetings held on July 5, 2013.
In line with the approval of the CCI, the Ministry of Water and Power took the following steps to minimize the tariff subsidies with the prior approval of Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar: (i) Nepra’s determined tariffs for nine Discos are notified with effect from August 5, 2013; (ii) no increase in the tariff category of domestic and agriculture consumers at present; (iii) Minimum Determined Tariff (MDT) 2012-13 of the respective categories is applied to consumers falling in commercial, bulk and AJK tariff categories; and (iv) all consumers falling under category-b, industrial tariff consumers are charged @ MDT+EQ S/C( Rs 0.81/kWh).
