KARACHI, Sept 17: The army in the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation has failed to control the transmission and distribution losses which have risen to 40 per cent of the total electric power handled by the power utility.
In May 1999, when the army took over the KESC with the avowed “objective of effecting a turnaround”, the transmission and distribution losses stood at 40 per cent.
Well-placed sources told Dawn on Friday that between 1999 and 2002 the transmission and distribution losses had gone down but they had now risen to the pre-army position in the KESC once again.
A petition filed by the KESC with the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) for a rise in power tariff says: “One of the principal factors underlying the poor performance of the Corporation is the level of energy losses. These comprise technical losses in the transmission and distribution network and non-technical losses caused principally by theft, incorrect metering and underbilling.
“The precise level of energy losses is not known (due to inadequate metering, billing irregularities, etc). The KESC estimates that losses are currently approximately 40 per cent.
More than half of the reported energy losses is thought to relate to non-technical losses, primarily as a result of theft and corrupt practices. The KESC has implemented a number of initiatives to reduce these losses and has achieved some limited success. However, it will not be possible to reduce these losses to more normal and tolerable levels without significant investment, particularly in metering equipment.”
Ironically, Nepra on Thursday allowed the KESC an average- based tariff increase of 6.5 per cent or 27.23 paisa per unit with immediate effect. It did not ask the KESC why it has failed to bring down the transmission and distribution losses.
Nepra also approved a new inflation-based tariff formula for seven years under which the KESC tariff would be revised on a quarterly basis to adjust increase in three tariff components, which are fluctuations in fuel price, change in power rates for the electricity to be purchased from the independent power producers and operation and maintenance cost according to inflation rate.
It is interesting to note that the latest audit report of the KESC puts the transmission and distribution losses at 36.81 per cent.
The report quotes KESC chairman Lt-Gen Zulfiqar Ali Khan as saying that “the transmission and distribution losses which were 40.23 per cent in the fiscal year 1999-2000 have been decreased to 36.81 per cent in the fiscal year 2000-01 by taking the following measures with the help of the army monitoring teams: regularization of 100,000 kundas/hooks and new connections on billing panel, laying of 11KV feeders and transformers, survey and combing of industrial and commercial areas to regularize unauthorized extended load, bring more consumers on billing panel and installation of energy meters on distribution transformers.”
When a KESC spokesman was asked to explain this discrepancy between the KESC audit report and its petition for tariff rise, he said: “The audit report indicates the average position of the transmission and distribution losses over a year whereas the petition states the instant value of the losses.”
He added that with the introduction of a new scheme in Clifton and Defence, the transmission and distribution losses had significantly come down in these areas.
“This scheme will now be implemented in Gulshan-i-Iqbal which is a huge KESC zone,” he said.