MUSHTAQ GHUMMAN

ISLAMABAD: Taking serious note of the recent nationwide power blackout, National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has decided to constitute a high powered committee to find out its reasons. The regulator took this decision a day before the Federal Cabinet meeting, in which the issue of power system collapse will be at the top of the informal agenda.

"NEPRA has decided to constitute a high-powered committee of its top professionals and renewed protection engineers from the private sector to ascertain the reasons and facts about this incident," Nepra said in an official announcement.

Though, NEPRA has not disclosed the names of committee members, it says that the committee will also give recommendations to avoid such incidents in future.

The country's different parts are now facing unscheduled load shedding, after the blackout. All power generation plants take time to come back to full load.

Meanwhile, NEPRA has imposed a fine of Rs 13 million on PESCO on charges of negligence resulting in fatal incidents from July to December, 2019.

NEPRA says, “upon receipt of reports of 26 deaths due to electrocution during the above period, it constituted a two-member Investigation Committee under Section 27A of the NEPRA Act 1997 to visit the relevant areas, conduct investigation and ascertain the facts and possible violations of NEPRA Laws, Rules and Regulations. The Investigation Committee’s report revealed that 14 out of the total 26 fatalities occurred due to PESCO’s negligence.”

The Authority issued a show-cause notice to PESCO under Section 27B of the NEPRA Act, 1997 and later gave an opportunity of hearing to PESCO. Based on the evidence available on record, submissions of PESCO and relevant provisions of the laws, rules and regulations; the Authority concluded that PESCO has failed to discharge its statutory obligations to maintain safety standards as laid down in the relevant Code and Manual. Further, PESCO failed to report fatalities immediately to the Authority in a prescribed manner as envisaged under the NEPRA Performance Standards (Distribution) Rules, 2005.

The Authority has, therefore, imposed a fine of Rs 13 million on PESCO and has also directed the company to compensate the bereaved families and details of such compensation shall be shared with the Authority in due course.