ISLAMABAD: In order to address governance problems in ten power distribution companies (DISCOs), the government has decided to hire sound and experienced professionals to provide sustainable solutions, Pakistan Today learnt reliably.
One senior official told that government has decided to hire experienced professionals from the private sector just to manage their blue-eyed persons ahead of the election.
The federal cabinet in its last meeting has also given the approval of hiring experienced professionals and it has been directed to the power division to prepare a governance plan for the improvement in this sector.
Officials close to all these developments told that the government has to some extent removed the menace of load shedding. The bigger challenge is the carrying capacity or transmission of generated electricity and the cabinet has directed the power division to determine the capacity of electricity which the system could absorb, and what steps were needed to increase this capacity.
The government can face problems in coming Ramadan due to a breakdown of transformers. Presently, The DISCOs have sufficient supply of backup transformers.
Officials further added that the cabinet has also directed the power division to take all possible steps to ensure the uninterrupted supply of electricity during Sehr and Iftar times.
Officials claim that the 3 RLNG plants will generate electricity. In April, 2242MW, and in May, 3000MW will be added to the system. Moreover, officials claim that the new hydel generation units would start producing electricity and would add 144MW in the month of April, which would go up to 1410MW in the month of August.
The real problem, according to the sources, is of governance and not of electricity generation. At present, a two-to-four hour load shedding is faced in category II feeders which covers 21.7 per cent of the total consumers, while on the other hand, the feeders belonging to category one covering 14.92 million or 60.2 per cent consumers across the country, have no load shedding.
It is pertinent to mention here that the minister for power has already blamed the DISCOs officials for theft in the power sector to the tune of Rs30 billion per month. If this continues, then the government will have to bear an annual loss of Rs360 billion.
