Power outages to end by March 2018, says federal secretary

Younus Dagha says Nepra requested to address issue of higher tariff for Karachi

Karachi

Loadshedding in the country will come to an end by March 2018. That is the year generation from Thar coal will begin.

This was stated by Younus Dagha, federal secretary for water and power, while addressing as chief guest a seminar, titled “Energy: direction for the future”, held by the Corporate Pakistan Group at a hotel on Saturday afternoon.

Many factors, he said, helped the situation, and one of these was improved financial and operational monitoring. 

He said that soon the Guddu thermal power station would go online and it would have a generating capacity of 400 megawatts. He said that it was anticipated that by the end of November 2016, the demand would fall below the generation line.

The power secretary said that in the future, the emphasis would be on a mix of coal, hydel and solar energy. He said that in 2018, a considerable part of the furnace oil would be replaced by coal.

Talking about “the way forward”, he said some of the methods were: bringing an end to lack of transparency through digital interventions; more efficient operational and financial monitoring; realistic tax recovery tariff regime; and rationalising subsidy limits.

“We will encourage provincial governments to undertake hydel power projects, for which lots of natural potential exists.”

Dagha said the private sector would be allotted an important role.

In reply to a questioner, he said a lot of investment was required for the transmission system and that most of it would have to come from the private sector. 

Another questioner submitted the idea of raising subsidies to boost the exports sector. 

The power secretary said that the federal government was working on hydel projects with an aggregate capacity of 18,000 MWs. The Water and Power Ministry, he said, was shifting emphasis to the hydel sector.

Talking about the Sahiwal coal power project which, he said, would be online by March 2018, he said that it would be run by a private party.

When a questioner asked as to why the inordinate delay in the Neelum-Jehlum power project, he replied, “The project was not properly planned; hence the delay.”

Another questioner asked why the power tariff was higher in Karachi than in other cities of the country, he said they had requested Nepra to remove this dichotomy and, pending some legal matters, this would be seen to.

He said he was summoned by Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, who complained that the coal sector was not doing well and said the solution they concurred on was active involvement of the private sector.

Earlier, Amin Hashwani, from the Hashwani group of companies, cited the discord in the region and blamed it on the increasing disparity between India and Pakistan.

Pakistan, he said, had suffered tremendously over the last decade on account of the power crisis. Its GDP had suffered, he said. “If we get the power sector right, lots of positive things will happen,” he said.  In this regard, he also mentioned Imran Khan’s prolonged sit-in in Islamabad last year.