By Zeeshan Javaid
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar on Monday warned aggressive defaulters of the power sector to pay their arrears under the head of electricity bills and announced to form a special recovery team full of arms to tackle the defaulters, who retaliate against recovery officers.
Qamar said this while addressing Islamabad Electric Supply Company?s (IESCO) headquarter in a meeting hosted by Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Hydro Labour Union (WHLU).
He said that the country has been facing treacherous power load shedding and major reason of lesser power generation came up with financial constraint, adding, ?To trickle down the financial constraint, the government will ensure recoveries from power sector defaulters by using all means and handle retaliated defaulters by recovery force beset with weapons.
The Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) has yet to ascertain any comprehensive strategy to recover its estimated receivables amounting to Rs 360 billion from public holding offices as well as other power consumers.
Sources familiar to the latest development informed Daily Times that more than Rs 360 billion became overdue towards public holding offices of central and provincial governments along with local power consumers that create hurdles to minimise the circular debt volume of power sector.
According to estimates of PEPCO, an amount of more than Rs 39 billion is due on Sindh province, Rs 18 billion towards Balochistan, Rs 5 billion to Punjab, Rs 10 billion towards Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Rs 16 billion is due in the account of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province against electricity billing.
Sources further revealed that dues of the federal ministries have been increased up to bulk level of Rs 40 billion, while provinces and other federal institutions are defaulters of power sector up to Rs 80-90 billion, the power sector also claimed that central government has been providing electricity to AJK on cheap prices, while since the last couple of years, the AJK government didn?t pay any single chunk to the Centre.
Interestingly, National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) allowed the line losses up to 14 percent, however the negligence of power managers seemed helpless to control and draft the concrete policy to control the increasing losses and power theft cases in some specific regions of power distribution companies.
In the light of figures disclosed by the Central Power Purchase Agency (CPPA), the average annual loss of Rs 90 billion has been observed having no justification by the power managers, however interestingly this loss is besides to T&D losses allowed by NEPRA up to 13-14 percent. Qamar also dispelled the impression of privatisation of power sector giants including power distribution companies of WAPDA as well as thermal power generation companies as announcing, ?federal government is not interested to privatise any power sector?s public holding company?.
He said that the government has decided to implement the cut on all sectors in the upcoming budget for fiscal year 2012-13 as well as development scheme under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the same fiscal year and invest money in power sector to resolve the ongoing energy crisis.
To culminate the public grievances of power load shedding, he added that federal government decided to shift over power generation through coal despite of using highly cost fuel base power generation. He announced bonuses for employees of all nine power distribution companies, hardship allowance for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, increase Employee Son Quota up to 33 percent from 20 percent and appointment of chief executive officers of power distribution companies after consultation of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani.
PEPCO DUES:
Sindh Rs 39 billion
Balochistan Rs 18 billion
Punjab Rs 5 billion
KP Rs 16 billion
AJ&K Rs 10 billion
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