LAHORE Federal Minster for State Abid Sher Ali has claimed the downturn in power sector has been reversed with the concerted efforts of the present government. Addressing a press conference on Saturday along with Muhammad Arshad, Managing Director National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC), Abid Sher Ali said the past government brought the country to darkness due to what he called sheer corruption and ineptness. However, he said, his government would end such dark days before the next general elections in 2018. Increase in power generation and augmented transmission system leads to zero load-shedding for the industry following the PML-N government's effective policies and initiatives, he observed. In the past, minister said, power sector of Pakistan witnessed mega scandals and corruption, but the present government had ensured merit audit of various power projects including Nandipur Power Project and no corruption or scandal was surfaced so far. He reminded that Rs 58 billion PC-I of Nandipur project was chalked-out by the past governments adding that vested interests failed this project. We have completed the project as per sanctioned expenditures and it is now producing 100MW, which is required nowadays. Nandipur project is generating electricity at Rs 11.5 per unit as determined by the NEPRA, he added. He said the false propaganda is being mongered against the project as the government is producing electricity from it as needed. Abid Sher said the Nandipur Power Project achieved the peak power generation of 460MW a few days back when hydro-power dipped to 2,000MW. Now generation of inexpensive electricity from hydel source, which now stands at 4,000MW, is being given priority by the government. We are generating electricity as per demand of the DISCOs and we prefer hydel and other inexpensive sources in this regard, he maintained. The overall load-shedding duration had also been reduced from as many as 18 hours in the past to only six hours in cities and eight hours in rural areas today. However, electricity is suspended to areas with huge line losses and excessive power theft for long duration, he added. The minister said the government was also working on various RLNG (Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas) based power plants having capacity of over 3,600MW with an aim to make them operational by 2017. We are also adding 400 kilometers transmission lines to connect these plants with the national grid. To a question, he said the government has also saved Rs 220 billion by introducing merit audit in the power sector and improved the distribution companies recovery rate ranging from 67 to 100 percent. The minister said the electricity worth Rs two billion is being stolen per month in SEPCO (Sukkur) alone; Rs 130 billion are receivable by QESCO (Quetta) under the head of tube-wells while feudal in Sindh did not pay power bills of their tube-wells and action is being taken against them. To a question, Abid Sher Ali said Prime Minister (PM) Nawaz Sharif asked his team to re-organise the open forums to address the complaints regarding over-billing.
