ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has decided to summon the chief executive officers (CEOs) of power Distribution Companies (Discos) and the managing director NTDC, after Ramazan, to evaluate the performance of each company individually in the light of the Nepra’s rules and regulations.
On February 23, 2024, the authority had grilled the Power Division and its organisations for their continuous failure to deal with inefficiencies which are overburdening the consumers through unrealistic monthly Fuel Charge Adjustments (FCAs) and shutting down the industry.
The Authority has further decided to evaluate the performance of each Disco individually after the month of Ramazan, on whether any violation of the Act, Rules, Regulations and licence has been committed once the data for nine months of the FY 2023-24; i.e., July 2023 to March 2024 is available.
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The performance evaluation shall be carried out in terms of sales, losses, recovery, connections, outages, etc., and each Disco shall be held responsible for deviation from the benchmarks set by the Authority. In due course of time, the Authority would also issue certain directives to each Disco and NTDC to be placed before their respective Boards for approval of a viable and workable plan to improve their performance and ensure compliance with the targets/benchmarks set by the authority. The authority shall evaluate/ assess the performance of each Disco. Accordingly, the performance parameters including but not limited to the following have been selected; (i) Transmission and Distribution (T&D) losses; (ii) recovery; (iii) restoration of faults/ unplanned power supply interruptions; (iv) pending ripe connections with aging; (v) pending net-metering connections with aging; (vi) replacement of defective meters with aging; (vii) fatal/ non-fatal accidents; (viii) earthing/ grounding of HT/ LT poles/ structures; (ix) feeder-wise Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses; (x) status of utilisation of investment of funds; and (xi) detection/ supplementary bills.
In this regard, specified formats/ proformas have been sent to Discos in order to acquire data from Discos along with plans, concrete measures and specific timelines.
The power regulator has asked all chairmen of the Discos’ Boards to look into the matter personally, issue necessary directions to their respective CEOs and ensure compliance with the Nepra’s directions.
The NEPRA chairman has directed to bring a consolidated proposal on system stability and give a safe exit to the regulator as it is also accountable to the people.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024