Discos to be handed over to provinces soon: power secretary tells National Assembly body

Modalities are being devised to hand over power Distribution Companies (Discos) to provinces, federal Secretary for the Ministry of Water and Power Imtiaz Hussain Kazi told the National Assembly's standing committee on water and power Tuesday. The Discos would be autonomous bodies and their boards would independently take decisions about power supply, he said.
"The Pakistan Electric Power Company (Private) Limited (Pepco) has been dysfunctional and it would be dissolved within two to three days after approval of the board. We have completed almost all work and just waiting for court's decision," Imtiaz told the committee.
The committee met with Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah in the chair at the Parliament House. Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur, Abdul Haq Mian Mitha, Chaudhry Abid Sher Ali, Sajjadul Hassan and Managing Director of Pepco Tahir Basharat Cheema also attended the meeting. Referring to the Energy Conference recently held in Lahore, the secretary said that Pakistan might import up to 500 megawatts of electricity. He said that the ministry, NTDC and Central Power Purchasing Agency would finalise the terms and conditions in this regard and submit an initial report next week for further processing.
Imtiaz said that the ministry was implementing the Energy Conference's decisions in letter and sprit. He said that the duration of load-shedding had been reduced after an improvement in the supply of fuel and gas. He said that currently, 16,000MW electricity was being generated. The country, he said, had more generation capacity, but it could not be utilised because of non-availability of gas.
The secretary said that the duration of electricity outages in major cities was between six and eight hours while eight to 10 hours in small cities. He said that electricity was being supplied between 12am and 7am for agricultural irrigation. Answering a question about conservation, he said that chief ministers of all provinces had agreed in the Energy Conference to close shops and markets at 8pm. But, he said, they had sought more time for consultation with all stakeholders. He said that closing shops at 8pm could save 1,200MW of power.
Answering another question about equitable distribution of electricity among provinces, he said that in the Energy Conference, a six-member team had been constituted in this regard. For this purpose, the team today (Tuesday) met with the minister of water and power. A special cell to monitor load management, daily power generation, demand and supply had also been set up in this regard, he said.
He said that uninterrupted power supply was being provided from today (Tuesday) to the industrial sector only in areas where they had independent industrial feeders. Load management advisory committees had been set up at Discos level with the representation of respective provinces to take decision on load management keeping in view the availability of electricity for all sectors, he said.
To save electricity through conservation measures, use of air conditioners was prohibited for all grade-19 and below officers. To monitor this decision, surprise raids would be conducted, he said. He said that to provide maximum relief to domestic electricity consumers, following the directions of the Prime Minister, the lowest slab for life-line consumers had been increased from 50 to 100 units. The new slab would be effective from next month, he said.
The tariff rate of such consumers under new slabs would be automatically reduced and they would get monetary benefit of about Rs 3.4 per unit, he said. This decision, he said, would benefit about 3.4 million more consumers. The number of lifeline consumers would now increase to 13.7 million, he said.
Answering to another question, he said that a total of 3400MW had been added to the power system during the past four years. He said that hydel units were producing between 1,700MW and 2,000MW. Currently, their output was just 800MW. He said that provinces were owed Rs 80 billion as fuel surcharge. In the Conference, the Chief Ministers committed to pay dues of the provinces.
While briefing the Committee about projections of demand and supply position, Thair Bashrat Cheema said that there was 14,660MW generation and 18,383MW demand in May, 15,451MW generation and 19,564MW demand in June, 15,200MW generation and 19,300MW demand in July, 15,210MW generation and 19,322MW demand in August, 15,181MW generation and 19,300MW demand in September. He said that the generation last year never exceeded 14,800MW.