Qamar announces two percent raise in power tariff: damage to property to be billed to protesters

The Minister for Water and Power, Naveed Qamar, on Saturday announced further 2 percent increase in power tariff, effective from June, and expressed inability to end power loadshedding in near future. Addressing a press conference after receiving reports of protest demonstrations against loadshedding in different parts of the country, he appealed to the people not to damage public property because this damage would be transferred to them in the bills.
"We cannot end load shedding in near future, but we are trying to mitigate it through different measures which include ensuring furnace oil supply and gas supply to all thermal power plants," he said, adding that shortfall has come down from 5000 mw.
He said that efforts are being made to minimise the level of forced load shedding so that an announced program of four hours load shedding in cities and eight hours in villages could be implemented. He said that 1200 mw new power has been injected in the system from April and May 2011 from the following projects: (i) Foundation Power, 215 mw, (ii) Hub Power Narowal- 225 mw, (iii) Halmore 300 mw, (iv) Karkay -230 mw and (v) Khan Khwar- 72 mw.
According to the Minister, the Prime Minister has convened Energy Summit on May 31, 2011 in which energy conservation measures would be taken which are expected to result in the announcement of two weekly holidays. The Minister said that he has taken serious notice of malpractices in Pepco system, including non-payment of bills.
"All discos and NTDC have been directed to disconnect public and private sector consumers who are not paying their bills. If we fail to recover outstanding arrears from defaulters, discos will collapse," he cautioned. He said that Rs 68 billion is outstanding against the private sector, and warned that all concerned officers of discos who would fail to recover the billed amount in their respective areas, "must be ready to face the music".
"We have decided to disconnect electricity of defaulters immediately across the board and, for this purpose, advertisements are being published in the media" he added. He said that if notices are being served to the Prime Minister Secretariat and federal government for not paying their bills, the other defaulters should face the same situation.
He said that Pakistan has to fulfil the conditionalities of IMF with regard to tariff but, at the same time, the government would take measures to minimise difference of cost of electricity produced and cost of delivery to the end consumers. At present, the difference between the cost of recovery and cost of power generation per unit is Rs 1.16 per unit.
The minister said that theft-free and regular bill paying areas would not face load shedding, whereas those areas where theft is evident and consumers are not paying their bills regularly, they would have more load shedding. He said that Thar coal project is Pakistan''s future and the government is trying to arrange financing for the project.
"The project which we are taking to the Chinese government for financing, Thar coal project is on top of them," he added. The Minister also criticised Iranian ambassador in Pakistan for his undiplomatic remarks with regard to delay in import of electricity from Iran. "Feasibility study of $800 million project is with the Iranian government. We are awaiting their comments," he said. He also announced that the government would announce upfront tariff for wind power projects, which are awaiting Nepra''s tariff determination for a long time.