ISLAMABAD: Amidst heated discussion in the Senate on long intervals power outage, the law makers demanded to takeover Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) and urged the government to seek an immediate solution to prolonged load-shedding in the country.
Mostly treasury members, as the opposition had decided not to become part of the proceedings, had impressed upon the government to also compel KESC to use furnace oil to produce electricity as well.
"They are looting our national money by producing power on gas and selling it on the rate of power produced through furnace oil," remarked Senator Raza Rabbani while putting a question in his own moved Calling Attention Notice regarding hours long power suspension in Karachi on Thursday.
Rabbani was hostile to KESC for the reasons like retrenchment of employees, usurping money by using cheaper sources to produce power and not using its full capacity when the gas is not available.
"Why does the government not compel KESC to meet its contractual obligations. Why are they violating the conditions despite assurances by top slot functionaries. Cannot we take it over," Rabbani added.
Minister for Water and Power Syed Naveed Qamar admitted that as regards retrenchment, the KESC was not on the right side. When the government intervened after termination of employees, the utility restored the employees but their posts were not given to them.
However, he assured to his senior colleague, Raza Rabbani that the government is with the employees and the issue will be resolved.
About the power outage in Karachi, the minister said, an unusual tripping occurred at all the four points of KESC as well as on Uch-Sibbi transmission line blacking out large portion of Karachi and some parts of Balochistan. "As we do not have a back up system, we had to restore the existing system that took couple of hours."
But Rabbani contested that the black out was till evening since it started in the morning and Naveed acknowledged that in such a situation some time is usually required to restore and rehabilitate the system.
Other members included Senator Ilyas Bilour, Saeed Ghani, Shahi Syed, Kamil Ali Khan, Hamayun Khan and Senator Zahid Khan.
Shahi Syed and Saeed Ghani supported Raza Rabbani's stance and claimed that the utility was usurping masses. "KESC is paying hefty amounts in salaries to the kith and kin of influential people but depriving poor workers from jobs," remarked Shahi Syed.
Saeed Ghani said KESC blackmails the government, WAPDA and SSGC and demanded appropriate legislation to take it over as he saw no
other way out to improve KESC's performance.
Naveed Qamar replied that KESC is investing in power sector and a new plant is near completion for power generation. KESC is also given 650 MW from national grid to meet Karachi needs.
"We are also providing them gas although the situation was not too good in gas sector also. Therefore, we are also trying to bring 500 mmcfd gas through LNG for running the power projects."
He said despite production of costly power from these projects, the government is giving subsidy to Karachi people.
He further stated that the government does not have authority to takeover KESC, rather this issue relates to Nepra. "It will otherwise be difficult to takeover KESC in the present legal regime."
Chairman Senate Nayyer Hussain Bokhari also showed concerns on power outage and asked the minister if any immediate steps were under consideration to overcome this problem.
The minister informed that a chunk of money is being released to IPPs that has resulted in 2000 MW more power generation.
"It will bring down load shedding and we will continue to sustain with it by pumping in more money and furnace oil till the situation in hydel improves.
"We are monitoring the situation closely and would not spare any machine to lying idle," he added as he also endorsed the proposal to constitute a House committee to investigate overall performance of KESC.
Answering a question, the minister informed that KESC is also trying to exploit cheaper fuel options like Thar coal for power generation. Kamil Ali Agha was more vocal like his previous days assertions as he complained from the Chair for not holding full fledged discussion on the issue.
He also demanded to adopt the formula presented by Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain about improving the situation in the power sector.
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