No outages from March next except theft areas: minister

LAHORE

There will be no power outages across the country from March, 2018 except for the areas where power theft ratio is high, claimed Abid Sher Ali, Minister of State for Water and Power here on Tuesday.

Briefing the media about power generation and transmission projects here at Wapda House, Abid Sher claimed that with swift completion of energy projects, initiated by the incumbent government, outages duration has already been reduced from 18 hours in 2013 to three hours only currently.

There will be three-hour power outages in urban and four hours in rural areas daily this summer, he said, adding the government was striving to ensure zero or shortest duration of outages in the upcoming month of Ramazan.

The Present government is determined to enhancing overall electricity generation capacity by 13,000mw in its five-year term and so far it has added 4,100mw to the national grid.

Talking about affordability of electricity, he said, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was fulfilling his promise of providing affordable electricity to the consumers of all categories by completing energy generation projects speedily through utilisation of all resources, hydel, gas, coal, wind, solar and biomass etc.

Giving details of under-construction projects, Abid Sher Ali said, three Regasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) based power projects of accumulative capacity of 3,600mw at Bhikki, Balloki and Haveli Bahadur Shah would be producing electricity with full capacity by April 2018, while Nandipur power project being converted on gas fuel would also be adding 525mw to the system till that date.

Moreover, 969mw Neelum-Jhelum Hydropower Project (NJHP) and 1,320mw Sahiwal Coal Power Plant will also start adding electricity to the system, the state minister added. He claimed that work on Dasu Hydropower Project, Munda Dam and Diamer-Bhasha Dam would be started by the year-end. The minister insisted that up to 70 percent system constraints had been removed and remaining 30 percent would be eliminated till May this year to avoid any tripping or blackouts. He said that circular debt had been reduced and contained to Rs320 billion at present from Rs550 billion in 2013, when the PML-N took over the government. He said the Sindh government had to pay outstanding dues of Rs60-70 billion to power companies, AJK Rs62 billion, Balochistan Rs146 billion and Fata Rs42 billion.

The current amount of circular debt could be abolished if these dues were paid to the power companies, he said. Abid Sher Ali said the government had also managed to ensure bills recovery up to 93 percent and mobile meter reading up to 90pc, while reducing the line losses to 17pc from 19pc. We have not only controlled Rs7-8 billion oil theft in Gencos (Public Sector Generation Companies) but also turned it into profit by earning Rs5.7 billion on this count, he added.

In our tenure, no power plant (independent power plant or IPP) was closed due to non-payment of dues, as we are paying them on regular basis, he said, adding that Nepra should assess efficiency of the IPPs.

The minister was also wary of IPPs about running campaign in media about outstanding dues. He said the government was also focussing on improving transmission lines and grid stations across Pakistan. Till 2018, the NTDC would complete installation of five new grid stations of 500kv and stretching its transmission lines of 2,000km which would carry extra load of 7,000mva, he added.