Dr Faizullah Abbasi, MD, SSGC has said that the entire workforce of the Company is committed towards taking on the challenge of UFG head on while stressing that an out-of-the-box approach is imperative to curb the losses. In an all-encompassing presentation to the Company's senior management, regional, zonal and sub-zonal managers on January 29, 2011.
Dr Abbasi focused on the achievements the Company has made over the last one year, challenges it is confronted with and some new organisational trends taken during the period to reinvigorate the Company along profitable and efficient lines. The MD reiterated that while SSGC made impressive profits of Rs 4.4 billion in 2009-10, a repeat performance is only possible if every SSGC employee rises to myriad challenges that confront the Company.
Steering towards stability: Dr Abbasi dilated on the extensive bottom-up organisational restructuring plan developed last year and reiterated that the challenge now lies in implementing the plan and in doing so ensuring effective control, operational efficiency and accountability for the primary objective of pinning down UFG. In order to rationalise the restructuring process, two business operations divisions were created, one each for Northern and Southern locations of the Company's franchise areas with the two DMDs as respective heads.
The MD suggested unification of Customer Relations, Billing and Distribution functions, proper utilisation of data for trend analysis and decision making and identification and quantification of thefts as some of the new approaches for tackling UFG. The MD said that with the assistance of a US $200 million loan from the World Bank (WB), SSGC is committed towards successfully implementing WB's Natural Gas Efficiency Project as part of an ambitious yet attainable 5-year UFG plan.
Under this project SSGC will replace approximately 5,750 km distribution pipeline (excluding supply main) during the next five years along with overhead and underground leak survey and rectification of 1.6 million customers and about 18,700 km of network, the MD elaborated. He congratulated the SSGC team that drafted the proposal for WB's consideration.-PR