Centre, provinces agree to amend Nepra Act

Khawaja Asif assures provinces’ reservations on generation,
transmission and distribution will be removed by end of current month

ISLAMABAD: The Centre and the provinces on Tuesday reached a consensus to amend the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) Act and finalised the proposed amendments after incorporating the viewpoints of the provinces.

Federal Minister of Water and Power Khawaja Asif said this while talking to newsmen after attending a meeting to finalise amendments to the Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electricity Act, 1997 (ActXL of 1997) in line with the decision of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

The minister chaired the meeting attended by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, KP Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak, chief secretaries of Balochistan and Punjab and officials of the ministries of water & power and finance.

Asif assured the meeting that the reservations of the provinces about generation, transmission and distribution will be removed by the end of the current month. Earlier, talking to the media, Murad Ali Shah said Sindh wanted complete control of setting up generation plant, tariff determination and transmission of electricity.

Under Article 157-II of the Constitution, the provinces may construct power houses and grid stations and lay transmission lines for use within their territorial limits. The same article also empowers the provinces to determine tariff for distribution of electricity within their territorial limits, he explained.

“Our demand is constitutional as it was already written there but was not translated. Now the minister has agreed to work upon it.” Murad Ali Shah said: “We are facing problems in generation, transmission and tariff determination of captive power and since we don’t have the authority to make a decision, therefore we cannot use them.” He said the Sindh province had the capacity to generate around 100 MW electricity from captive power, but since the province lacked the authority, it was lying idle.

He said Sindh could generate enough captive power which could help reduce loadshedding by 4 to 5 hours. Besides, he said the provinces were also facing problem in registering Bagass power generation with the CPPA. But now the minister has assured that he will resolve the issue, he added.

He said the provinces had asked the minister to accommodate their proposal in the Nepra Amendment Act. He assured that he will take  the provinces on board regarding amendments to the Nepra Act.

Asked about his earlier stand on discontinuing gas supply to the rest of country, he said he still stood by his words as it was the right provided by Article 158 of the Constitution. Regarding provision of water to the province, he said the IRSA should ensure water supply to the province as per the 1991 Water Accord.

“We also discussed the issue of loadshedding in the province. Some areas in the province are facing 18-20 hour loadshedding. The loadshedding will be eliminated from the entire country during the current year.”

Meanwhile, a press release stated that Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Muhammad Asif chaired a meeting to finalise amendments to the Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electricity Act, 1997 (ActXL of 1997) in line with the decision of the Council of Common Interests (CCI).

The meeting took into consideration the proposed amendments in detail. All the participants gave their inputs and the amendments were agreed upon after necessary modification/improvements in the language.