KARACHI, April 30: Farmers all over the country will start receiving the benefit of 33 per cent power subsidy on their tubewell operations for kharif crops from Thursday (May 1) as promised by Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali.

“Total impact of this subsidy for kharif comes to Rs1.6 billion to be shared by Wapda and the provincial governments.” This was stated by Lt-Gen (Retd) Zulfikar Ali Khan to a panel of senior staff members of Dawn editorial staff on Tuesday. Kharif ends by November.

The WAPDA chief visited Dawn office on Tuesday and answered a wide range of questions on the performance, operations and long term development vision of his organization.

“Total impact of 33 per cent subsidy on operation of more than one lakh tubewells comes to Rs3.3 billion,” he said and defended Prime Minister Jamali’s decision. He said India offers a huge subsidy to farmers and during the last fiscal a sum of Rs277 billion was given.

In about one-and-a-half-hour long question-answer session with Dawn panel the general was frank and blunt in giving his observations and touched on a variety of issues that affected the operations of Wapda. He mostly repeated what he had been saying recently on different occasions to justify hike in power tariff and losses being suffered by Wapda.

The Wapda chief did not mince words to blame oil distribution companies in Pakistan of manipulating every fortnight prices of petroleum products for their benefits.

“See, how their profits are soaring,” he remarked while pointing out that the fortnight price fixation system for oil products is giving all opportunities to oil distribution companies to reap huge profits on their inventories.

He had been pleading with the government repeatedly to make Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) as authoritative and active as NEPRA is. Tariff on electricity is determined by NEPRA after inviting objections from the consumers.

Since May 1999, he said, furnace oil prices went up by 125 per cent and that of gas by 108 per cent but WAPDA was allowed to raise its tariff by only 15.5 per cent.

He said that it is time that a decision be taken on fundamental issue whether it was state’s responsibility to provide basic amenities like water, electricity, education and health. “What should be the price at which these services could be provided to public,” he asked and said that answer to this question would help him draw a long-term perspective development plan.

Wapda is groaning under huge recovery problem amounting to Rs34.5 billion that include a bulk amount of Rs25 billion from FATA in NWFP from where there is hardly any chance of getting money and he needs a fabulous amount of Rs60 billion plus to provide electricity to about 50 to 60 million people living in 53,000 villages scattered in all four provinces and are still without electricity even after 55 years of independence.

“Poor recovery means less investment and hence a deterioration in services,” he remarked while trying to establish that good recovery facilitates investment and hence improvement in services.

Zulfikar Ali Khan literally shocked Dawn panel when he revealed that line losses in Karachi before army take-over were 60 per cent which have now been brought down to 43 per cent. “Line losses in Karachi were under reported,” he remarked. He debunked official and unofficial reports and audit figures which showed line losses in Karachi at 38 per cent. The general was asked what improvement did army bring in KESC when line losses have increased from 38 per cent to 43 per cent.

He disclosed that Wapda plans to draw up a blue print for a new coal-based electric power generation plant in Karachi in 2005.

Apparently, he said that there is no reason for line losses on account of transmission and distribution in Karachi. “Electric power is generated in city and transmitted and distributed within a compact population and hence less chances of losses,” he said. The industrial and domestic consumers are distributed equally. Then there is an underground network, which keeps losses low.

He said that at present there was a gap of 700 megawatt between power generation and demand in Karachi, which is being met by independent power producers and Wapda.

Speaking of distribution problem in Karachi he said out of 102 power transformers, 67 are over-loaded. “Over-loading of power transformers, which are used to bring down electric voltage from 220 kilovolts to 132 kilovolts and finally to 11 kilovolts, is a major cause of power breakdowns. Ten new transformers are being purchased by KESC from the funds provided by the Prime Minister.