ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Commi­ttee on Energy (CCoE) on Thursday expressed dissatisfaction over the Power Division’s stance on countrywide power breakdown on January 9 and ordered that a report be submitted if the recommendations of the power regulator to address system weaknesses had been complied with.

The meeting of the CCoE was presided over by Minister for Planning, Develop­ment and Special Initiatives Asad Umar.

The Power Division presented the report of the inquiry into the power outage across the country on Jan 9, 2021. The committee was given a detailed briefing on technical reasons which led to the countrywide breakdown. The Power Division reported that three separate inquiry reports had clearly proved that the incident at Guddu Power Complex was a trigger point that led to the breakdown of the entire power system.

The committee observed that while the inquiries had established the immediate cause of breakdown of the system, it was important to find out as to why sufficient checks and balances were not in place in the system to prevent cascading occurrence of such events across the country.

Seeks report to know if Nepra recommendations have been implemented

The committee “directed that it may be ascertained whether recommendations given by Nepra in 2018 after the then power breakdown were implemented or otherwise,” an official statement said. The committee also directed that a detailed clarification should also be provided “as to whose responsibility it was to implement these recommendations.”

Circular debt to touch Rs2.587tr

The Power Division also presented the latest circular debt status and comprehensive circular Debt Management Plan (CDMP) 2021 which covers the three-year period from FY21 to FY23 and describes the mechanisms and initiatives to address the issue.

The meeting was informed that technical losses in the transmission and distribution network would be reduced by 2.2pc and recovery of bills would be improved by 5.6pc to 96pc in two years as part of the action plan to control the flow of circular debt with a monitoring matrix system.

The Power Division reported that despite best efforts the circular debt was projected to jump by Rs436bn to Rs2.587 trillion by end of the current fiscal year. It said prior year recoveries through tariff during the current year would amount to about Rs257bn including Rs108bn to be recovered in remaining four months (March-June) of the FY21.

Informed sources said the circular debt management plan finalised with the IMF and other lending agencies targeted containing the debt at Rs2.4tr through tariff, subsidy, efficiency and recovery improvement. The meeting was informed that an amount of Rs213bn was receivable from K-Electric as of June 30, 2020 that had been pending due to subsidy dispute between Ministry of Finance and KE.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2021