Power crisis further deepened on Monday when energy shortfall rose to around 7,000 Megawatts and this led to riots in many parts of the country, including some Federally Administered Tribal Areas. About 50 political activists were injured in clashes with police on Mirpur-Mangla Road. Similar riots have also been reported from Faisalabad, certain areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Lahore. The production of electricity from all sources is about 10,500MW against a demand for 17,500MW. Besides, the circular debt has risen to Rs761 billion and climbing.
The infamous circular debt is the gift of introducing corporate culture in the Water and Power Development Authority which, under a World Bank Corporate Plan, was enforced in 2006 to establish three 'autonomous' companies in generation and transmission and nine in electricity supply to settle among them the question of financial transactions. In fact, the plan was envisaged in 1997 and the Musharraf regime only implanted it. The second Nawaz Sharif government sought the WB financial assistance to turn WAPDA into 12 companies after the failure of an identical corporate plan for the Pakistan Railways which has now reached the brinks of a total collapse. This is ironic that the people at the helm of affairs repeated the mistake after the PR disaster.
The corporatization of WAPDA has not only lead to untold miseries of the people confronting prolonged electricity outages in the scorching heat of the sizzling summer weather, it also resulted in mounting circular debt in the absence of a central command of WAPDA which used to show overall system and line losses at a maximum of 20 per cent. These losses have now reached up to 35 per cent because each of its 12 companies have been showing various degrees of accumulated losses. An immediate solution of substance is the restoration of the WAPDA's central authority which used to be managed in the past by a chairperson and members of water, power and finance. The Pakistan People's Party-led government in the past took some initiatives to meet the objective and the PML-N's, which is now a matter of about a week or so away from getting in power, must also consider to carry on the unfinished job. Maybe the government now assuming power will find it difficult to implement a scheme of its political adversary, no other substantial option is probably available to relive the people of their miseries. This will also save the national economy from sluggishness that is causing a loss of about Rs5 billion on each day of power load-shedding. What the country needs is that system and line losses are brought down by half. This can easily be done by restoring the WAPDA's central command and not spending even a single penny. If this is not done, the government will keep doling out billions to oil companies without any positive and permanent outcome.
Wednesday, May 29, 2013
Electricity and WAPDA
Power crisis further deepened on Monday when energy shortfall rose to around 7,000 Megawatts and this led to riots in many parts of the country, including some Federally Administered Tribal Areas. About 50 political activists were injured in clashes with police on Mirpur-Mangla Road. Similar riots have also been reported from Faisalabad, certain areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Lahore. The production of electricity from all sources is about 10,500MW against a demand for 17,500MW. Besides, the circular debt has risen to Rs761 billion and climbing.
The infamous circular debt is the gift of introducing corporate culture in the Water and Power Development Authority which, under a World Bank Corporate Plan, was enforced in 2006 to establish three 'autonomous' companies in generation and transmission and nine in electricity supply to settle among them the question of financial transactions. In fact, the plan was envisaged in 1997 and the Musharraf regime only implanted it. The second Nawaz Sharif government sought the WB financial assistance to turn WAPDA into 12 companies after the failure of an identical corporate plan for the Pakistan Railways which has now reached the brinks of a total collapse. This is ironic that the people at the helm of affairs repeated the mistake after the PR disaster.
The corporatization of WAPDA has not only lead to untold miseries of the people confronting prolonged electricity outages in the scorching heat of the sizzling summer weather, it also resulted in mounting circular debt in the absence of a central command of WAPDA which used to show overall system and line losses at a maximum of 20 per cent. These losses have now reached up to 35 per cent because each of its 12 companies have been showing various degrees of accumulated losses. An immediate solution of substance is the restoration of the WAPDA's central authority which used to be managed in the past by a chairperson and members of water, power and finance. The Pakistan People's Party-led government in the past took some initiatives to meet the objective and the PML-N's, which is now a matter of about a week or so away from getting in power, must also consider to carry on the unfinished job. Maybe the government now assuming power will find it difficult to implement a scheme of its political adversary, no other substantial option is probably available to relive the people of their miseries. This will also save the national economy from sluggishness that is causing a loss of about Rs5 billion on each day of power load-shedding. What the country needs is that system and line losses are brought down by half. This can easily be done by restoring the WAPDA's central command and not spending even a single penny. If this is not done, the government will keep doling out billions to oil companies without any positive and permanent outcome.
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