LAHORE, July 28: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Saturday expressed grave concern over fast rising power sector circular debt and urged the government to ensure availability of a new ‘sustainable’ policy to deal with the unprecedented outages.

In a statement, LCCI president Irfan Qaiser Sheikh said that if the government failed to take immediate measures the power sector is likely to choke up due to heavy outstanding dues.

He said that the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Water and Power should take urgent steps for making payments to cope with the fast deteriorating energy situation.

Sheikh said that the LCCI has been calling for a long time now for much needed reforms in the power sector to control pilferage, line losses and to stop corrupt practices.

“People in general and the industry in particular continues to suffer long blackouts in spite of almost doubling the price of electricity in the last four years.

The government in 2008 pledged to revamp the power sector and end electricity shortages. Since then, it has raised electricity price by more than 85 per cent to eliminate subsidies but failed to implement reforms to make the power sector efficient,” he said.

The energy situation would have been quite satisfactory had the government eliminated production, transmission and distribution losses; checked theft and recovered outstanding dues, he said.