ISLAMABAD, Nov 5: Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf has said that loadshedding will end by December next year.
Addressing the Senate standing committee on water and power on Wednesday, he said the government was trying to tide over the energy crisis and ensure uninterrupted supply to domestic and industrial consumers.
Mr Ashraf said that a cumulative debt of Rs400 billion had created problems for the power generation sector while Rs260 billion is owed to eight power companies, which owe Rs140 billion to oil companies.
He said power generation companies had no money to pay to the oil companies and that had worsened the situation. There is a marked reduction in generation by furnace-oil based plants.
The minister said that generation also suffered because of a reduction in water releases from Tarbela and Mangla dams, adding that water was being saved for Rabi crops.
The minister assured the committee that the situation would improve after rental power generation units arranged by the government went online, augmenting the existing supply from independent power producers.
Another factor which badly affected power generation was the low priority of supply of natural gas to power companies, which were seventh on the priority list.
The minister volunteered to discuss the issue of power tariff with the committee in its next meeting.
The committee stressed the need for devising emergency plans to increase the generation capacity to overcome the crisis and said that the situation could be remedied with a proactive approach.
The committee directed the ministry to expedite work on power generation units being installed in various parts of the country.
Members of the committee also decided to visit Quetta and see progress on the Sheikh Manda power generation unit.
Assuring full support, the committee said that all bottlenecks would be removed to resolve important issues.
The meeting, headed by Senator Zafar Iqbal Chaudhry, was attended by Senator Muhammad Amjad Abbas, Ms Agha Pari Gul, Abdul Razak A. Thahim, Maulana Rahat Hussain, Maulana Gul Naseeb, Raza Muhammad Raza and Dr Javaid Laghari and senior officials of the ministry.
APP adds: The government on Wednesday said it would introduce ‘smart electricity meters’ in view of complaints of inflated and manipulated billing.
The cabinet was informed that the government had paid Rs60 billion to IPPs and the supply of furnace oil had also increased.
The government is also working to boost investment in the power sector for generation of 3,000 megawatts of electricity.
The cabinet asked the ministry of water and power to revamp the power sector by rationalising and streamlining the institutional set-up, reducing dependence on imported fuel for power generation and undertaking major initiatives to conserve energy and reduce line losses.