Circular debt reaches Rs740.65bn mark

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ISLAMABAD: Circular debt has reached Rs 740.65 billion mark and the issue of loadshedding would continue to persist till the completion of mega hydel projects, Ministry of Water and Power told the Special Committee on Energy Crisis of the National Assembly on Thursday. The amount of receivables from federal and provincial governments and other departments is Rs 375.73 billion while the amount of payables is Rs 364.92 billion as on March 31, 2012. 

The Committee met with Engineer Usman Khan Taraki in the Chair at parliament House to discuss the current situation of loadshedding in the country and related issues. Rana Tanveer Hussain, Nawab Yusuf Talpur, Ms Bushra Gohar, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and officials of the Ministry attended the meeting.

Imtiaz Hussain Kazi, the Federal Secretary for Ministry of Water and Power, told the Committee that an amount of Rs 68.88 billion was receivables from the provinces; Rs 14.27 billion from federal government; Rs 60.4 billion from KESC; Rs 20 billion from FATA; Rs 14.56 billion from AJK government and others departments till March 2012.

The Secretary Water and Power said that an amount of Rs 215.62 billion was payables in the shape of IPPs, Rs 70.32 billion to Wapda Hydel; Rs 31.299 billion to NTDC/Gencos/Rental Projects); Rs 26.65 billion for oil and Rs 21 billion for gas.  

The Secretary Water and Power said: “We cannot overcome loadshedding completely because the maximum capacity of electricity generation is 16000 MW while demand soars to 18000 MW in peak summer.”

Answer a question, Imtiaz Kazi said there was also a big issue of subsidy due to tariff deferential. He said that Rs 60 billion are also receivable on fuel adjustment surcharge since October 2011 while Rs 80 billion not charged since July, 2011 whereas 4 percent was equalization surcharge. He said the government was giving a Rs 3.92 per unit subsidy to consumers on tariff deferential. He said that the government had given a Rs 120 billion subsidy on electricity in the previous financial year.

Answering a question raised by Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the Secretary admitted that “circular debt is increasing day by day due to tariff deferential and electricity bills are also increasing for this very reason.”

About loadshedding, Kazi said that at present there was loadshedding of 10 hours in big cities, 10 to 12 hours in towns, 6 hours in commercial areas and 12 to 14 hours in rural areas. He said the current generation of electricity was 11424MW, including 2800MW hydel, 3341MW gas, 4673MW RFO and 610MW from nuclear power plants. He said, Rental Power Plants (RPPs) were not producing any electricity.

He said that Tarbela (1055MW), Mangla (721MW), Ghazi Barotha and Guddu (580MW) were generating maximum electricity as of now.

Answering another question about hydel and Thar projects, the Secretary said that the World Bank had agreed to support Pakistan on Tarbela 4th (Tunnel) Extension Hydropower Project. He said the US would provide financial support on the construction of Munda Dam while the Asian Development Bank would give $ 650 million for the import of coal and coal power plants.

He said China would make maximum investment in Thar coal project.

While grilling Minster of Water and Power and Napra, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the officials of the Ministry had failed to satisfy the Committee.