Contrary to its water resources and hydro power development programme, popularly known as vision 2025, the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda} has sought the government’s permission to let the independent power producers (IPPs) set up two thermal power stations of 600 MW each at Multan and Faisalabad. It seems very likely that the government of the day accord WAPDA the approval for the same.
Ever since the Benazir government let the IPPs set up thermal power plants in Pakistan, not a single day has passed when successive governments have not criticized her power policy. The cumulative effect of this criticism and prolonged litigations has only shaken the foreign investors’ confidence in Pakistan.
The proposal contradicts the government’s power policy and makes mockery of Wapda, which has recently formulated its water resource and hydro power development programme for meeting water and power shortage in the country and striking the right balance between hydel and thermal power generation to bring down the average cost of electricity. During the next 25 years WAPDA plans to create 65 million-acre feet (MAF) of water storage capacity and produce 33,000 MW electricity.
Over the years Pakistan has bore enormous damage done to the power sector by Wapda’s inactivity in the area of hydel power generation. Because of this inactivity, power breakdowns and load shedding have become endemic, causing production losses worth billions of rupees daily. Surprisingly none of our successive governments took into account this catastrophic neglect of hydel power generation by WAPDA.
It is a startling fact that in a country with a hydroelectric potential of 50,000 MW, no major hydroelectric power station has been built for 26 years after Tarbela. Recently President Pervez Musharraf, while inaugurating a seminar of Wapda in Lahore said that the major focus of the government’s efforts during the next 10 or 15 years would be on the development of water and power resources with which the country was richly endowed.
It is shocking that a country with such a huge hydropower generation potential has been largely relying on high-cost thermal power. All major countries have exploited their hydel resources to the full before going for other forms of energy. But the case of Pakistan is almost reverse. Of the total 17,712 MW installed capacity, around 70 per cent (12,335 MW) comes from thermal, 28 per cent hydel (4,916 MW) and two per cent nuclear power.
Realizing that the country had abundant water& power resources, Wapda was created for developing these resources. But a general review of country’s water and power sector suggests that the main function of Wapda has been completely ignored for all these years.
There has been no serious national commitment to water and power development for the last 26 years; Kalabagh has often been used as an excuse. Even if warring provinces agree it will take at least 10 years to build. By the time of its completion we will need power of several Kalabaghs even at a moderate rate of growth. It is against the national interest to make water and power development hostage to one project or other vested interests.
Over the last two decades, the water storage capacity of the country has declined because of siltation and no new project was taken in hand to make up the loss. Moreover during this period the ratio of the power mix between hydro-electricity and thermal power has reversed to 30:70 as no addition except Ghazi Brotha project that has bee delayed considerably for one reason or the other, was made to hydro-power generation, with emphasis in the power sector having been shifted in favour of thermal power projects.
While Pakistan is short of oil and gas, it spends around Rs100 billion annually on oil and gas in power generation. No serious attempt has been made by WAPDA to exploit huge coal reserves of the country. This neglect of coal is in sharp contrast to the practice in many countries where coal is a major source of power generation. In the US, for instance, coal accounted for 57 per cent of produced power. This ratio is 65 per cent in India, 80 per cent in China and 44 per cent in the UK. The recent contract by a Chinese firm for setting up the coal-fired power station in Thar is premature and will take at least four to five years to share the burden of country’s power shortages.
At present the situation is as grim as it was in the early nineties. The expected shortfall in power supply during coming winter is anticipated to range between 300 and 600 MW. Further continued operational losses of the Wapda are being adjusted by the government through various budgetary provisions and by increasing tariff frequently. During the financial year 2000-01, Wapda was allowed five tariff revisions, which amounts to 43 paisa/KWh.
The power sector of Pakistan has been affected by institutional and organizational weaknesses. Line losses, theft and rampant corruption continue to haunt the power sector of Pakistan. Wapda has reported to be having a loss of billions of rupees a year due to transmission and distribution losses. Further appointment of senior management staff has become increasingly politicized. Wapda has degenerated into unwieldy, overcentralized, and multi-layered bureaucracy, dominated by political expediency, where efficiency and quality of service continue to decline.
The annual report of Wapda for the year 2000-2001, covering both hydroelectric and thermal power generation, has reported a loss of Rs54.87 billion at current purchase price because of underutilization.
Hydroelectric power generation stood at an average of nearly 2,000 MW out of an installed capacity of around 5000 MW. Although Wapda has been citing drought as the cause of this decline, but factually it is not so. Statistics reveal that in 2000-2001, Wapda released 4.13 MAF to generate 2.79 billion units whereas during 1997-98 it released 4.36 MAF of water from the Mangla lake and generated 6.1 billion units.
This represents a 54 per cent decline in power generation for a five per cent drop in water availability. The trend at the Tarbela dam was not so much different. This shows that it was not the drought for which Wapda propagated for this power shortages but it was the inefficiency of Wapda that led the country at a point where self-sufficiency in power has become a mirage.
Hydroelectricity, being more economical, is capable of providing tariff relief to the consumers. If better and more efficient generation and distribution are ensured more electricity can still be made available without increasing the production capacity. This the authority can do by removing the inefficiencies inherent in it’s working without asking for periodic tariff increases.
One of the major reasons due to which we find ourselves in so much difficult situation with regard to power generation is that it takes decades for us to follow right policies. We never had open and informed debates on vital issues.
Our water resources and hydropower development is one of those areas where right policy has not yet been followed.
There is a dire need that the government and the Wapda formulate a well-defined target-oriented power policy covering all elements of hydro and thermal power generation and once the policy is announced and vision is focused there must not be any deviation from it. If we keep fixing and re-fixing our priorities by wasting both time and resources we will be nowhere.