October 31, 2008	Friday	Ziqa'ad 1, 1429

ISLAMABAD, Oct 30: The government has decided to reduce loadshedding hours from 11 to six as the power shortfall has come down to 1,800MW from 7,000MW thanks to improved coordination between ministries and supply of oil and gas to independent power producers.

This was announced on Thursday by the system operation monitoring committee, constituted by the Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf, to resolve outstanding issues between the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), IPPs and power distribution companies.

In a separate meeting with parliamentarians and other stakeholders, Mr Ashraf promised a “considerable relief” to consumers within a few days as a special committee set up to investigate the recent 31 per cent hike in power tariff had almost finalised its recommendations for a possible cut in tariff increase.

The government had last week deferred the power tariff increase and allowed consumers to pay 60 per cent of their bills for September.

The Director General of the Pakistan Electric Power Company’s Energy Management wing, Tahir Basharat Cheema, told a news conference that power shortfall would be reduced further to 1,400MW in the next couple of days.

He said 15 days ago, the country had seen a shortfall of 6,100MW. However, a payment of Rs43 billion to oil and gas companies and IPPs helped in adding 4,900MW to the system.

He said the outstanding dues of IPPs and oil/gas companies stood at Rs10 billion each.

The daily receivable due of Pepco was around Rs1 billion, he added.

The committee has also calculated line losses of distribution companies and observed that Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) with its average line losses of 36 per cent topped the “inefficient companies”. The losses of Multan Electric Supply Company stood at 13 per cent and Wapda’s 20 per cent.Wapda has Rs140.5 billion in outstanding dues -- Rs76 billion against the Federally Administrative Tribal Areas, Rs56 billion against the KESC, Rs7.25 billion against the Sindh government and Rs1.25 billion against the Azad Kashmir government.

Mr Basharat parried a question whether the committee had come up with any mechanism to recover Wapda’s huge claim.

A member of the committee, however, told Dawn that after three weeks hydel power generation would drop considerably due to de-silting of canals. The main option available during the peak winter season would be furnace oil because the government would have to meet the gas demand of domestic consumers by channelling more supplies than it did during summer, he added.

The committee also observed that neither the drop in power shortfall nor increased generation from the existing system was a solution to loadshedding, but establishment of new plants that could generate 6,000MW in a year.

The committee also stressed the need for power generation through coal. At present, the country produces only 43 per cent from hydel and the rest thermal.

Earlier, the water and power minister presided over a meeting of the special committee being headed by special assistant to the prime minister, Hina Rabbani Khar. The committee has been tasked with preparing recommendations for increase in power tariff on the basis of fuel charges.