LAHORE, May 7: The Pakistan Wapda Hydro-Electric Central Labour Union advised the government on Tuesday to desist from privatizing Wapda’s power distribution companies. Privatization, they said, would result in an increase in electricity rates and winding up of the rural electrification programmes.

Union secretary general Khurshid Ahmad, joint president Agha Badrul Islam Abdali and deputy chairman Malik Noor Muhammad told a press conference at the Bakhtiar Labour Hall here the government should protect the interests of the consumers.

They said the Benazir government’s decision to purchase power from the private companies and privatization of powerhouses like the Guddu had resulted in a sharp increase in electricity rates on one hand and economic destabilization of the Wapda on the other.

They said privatization of distribution companies would result in further escalation of electricity rates and scrapping of the rural electrification programmes as the private power distributors would be unwilling to serve new consumers in remote villages. Before the Wapda took over, they said, the Rawalpindi Electric Power Supply Company and the Multan Electric Power Supply Company, used to refuse requests for connections in rural areas because they did not expect a large electricity consumption by villagers.

They said California in United States and New Zealand were the only countries so far where power distribution had been privatized. In New Zealand, electricity rates had doubled and in California quadrupled after the privatization. Results would not be different in Pakistan no matter what the World Bank pundits said.

They said the Wapda had kept down the increase in power rates despite purchasing power from the private companies by generating its own thermal and hydel power at lower rates. It was supplying power to 10,366,000 domestic and 182,000 agricultural consumers at rates which were lower than its own costs.

Privatization of distribution companies like the Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company would affect the Wapda’s capacity to subsidize electricity rates for domestic and agricultural consumers.

They said the consumers could not afford a further escalation in rates resulting from privatization of distribution companies.