Responsibility for current crisis: power ministry tries to defend itself

The Ministry of Water and Power is reportedly defending itself against accusations by Ministries of Finance and Petroleum that it alone is responsible for the current power crisis which accounts for ongoing violent protests in different parts of the country.
"The Petroleum Minister is blaming Water and Power Ministry so that he can head an ''Energy Ministry'', while the Finance Ministry is not releasing the subsidy to Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco)," complained an official of the Ministry of Water and Power.
The official accused the Petroleum Minister of secretly instructing Pakistan State Oil (PSO) not to supply fuel to the power plants so that the incumbent Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar could be criticised for failure to ensure capacity generation.
The official said that increase in tariff is on the cards, but its implementation will commence only after load shedding is reduced considerably within a couple of weeks. Asked when the ''energy committee'', headed by Finance Minister Hafeez Shaikh will submit its recommendations to the Federal Cabinet, the official said that the committee has almost finalised its recommendations for the Cabinet meeting expected to be held next week.
The Finance Ministry released Rs 9 billion to Pepco to enable it to procure fuel and thereby contain load shedding, but so far the effect on load shedding has been negligible. Sources said that Pepco''s outstanding amount against public and private sector is about Rs 240 billion, of which Rs 100 billion is against the Federal Government, the Provincial Governments and AJK, while private sector has to pay Rs 140 billion.
"We are requesting Finance Ministry to deduct Rs 100 billion at source from the accounts of Federal and Provincial Governments, but no decision has been taken in this regard yet," the official added. Independent analysts argue that electricity shortfall has touched record level of 7000 MW due to incompetence of top brass of Water and Power Ministry which has failed to meet the fuel requirements of a week.
"Pakistan''s power sector is compelled to resort to massive load shedding due to overloaded infrastructure, circular debt and capacity shortfall. The scale of the problem is unprecedented in our history. The crisis has not only hampered Pakistan''s economic growth but has also paralysed industry and agriculture and brought untold hardships to domestic consumers," one analyst said.