January 06, 2009	Tuesday	Muharram 08, 1430

KARACHI, Jan 5: Despite the government’s decision to clear most of the outstanding dues payable by the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) to the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco), and asking the KESC to augment power generation, Karachiites suffered unannounced load-shedding of more than one and a half hours at least thrice during the day on Monday, when consumers in many parts also experienced voltage fluctuation.

This was despite the government decision to provide 50 million cubic feet additional gas and 8,000 tons fuel oil to the KESC to increase its power generation capacity.

At night when there was no outage in most parts of the city, people had taken a sigh of relief, but many areas plunged into darkness and despite alternative arrangement for Muharram majalis, people attending religious congregations faced great hardship as they were also exposed to security threats.

Sources said the KESC management was still pursuing the policy of minimising its expenses on furnace oil, ignoring the government’s directives to increase generation.

Sources in the power ministry said that if the KESC increased its generation of Bin Qasim and KTPS power plants and consumed the maximum from the two dedicated IPPs, it would reduce dependence on the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda), which is generally to the tune of 600 megawatts (MW) daily. This much power capacity can substantially reduce the burden on the national grid and power supply position in other parts of the country.

But the KESC’s private management is importing more from Wapda on credit. This has made it uneconomical for the IPPs to operate.

The KESC management is also not happy with the government’s bail-out decision according to which the finance division will make 90 per cent payment to Pepco directly from the subsidy amount of the KESC. At the same time, the KESC has been directed to make regular payments of its current bills.

The Abaraj-led KESC management has been asked to set up new power plants and improve the existing power generation and distribution system for smooth power supply to the consumers and ensure proper recovery to reduce losses.

But the problem is that the KESC management is still not telling the truth and giving misleading statistics about the duration of load-shedding in the city. The chief executive officer of the KESC informed a meeting in Islamabad on Monday that the shortfall was to the tune of 100MW and load-shedding of 45 to 60 minutes only was being carried out. He had claimed that the power situation was stable and in the coming days there would be no deficit in power supply in the winter.

This resume was contrary to the fact as Karachiites continue to endure long hours of load-shedding. The KESC has failed to give any schedule for load- shedding as directed by the government, which has come under intense criticism for the poor performance of the power generating and distribution utilities.

According to Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf, the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) was to receive Rs70 billion dues from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Rs80 billion from the KESC while the government departments across the country owed billions of rupees.

According to him, the previous government had left an unpaid circular debt of about Rs160 billion in this sector, which it owed to the power producers and oil companies.Meanwhile, the proposal to bifurcate the KESC into more than one distribution companies, and separating generation and distribution, as was the case in Lahore, has attracted the attention of Finance Adviser Shaukat Tareen, who had also stated that the KESC had shown no improvement even after its privatisation and that it continued to incur losses of billions of rupees every year. The KESC has been paying nothing to power supplying agencies such as Pepco and it owes billions of rupees to them.

“The KESC is getting just free power supply from the government. Even then, it has failed to deliver to the people,” Mr Tareen had recently stated while speaking to industrialists here.