Dissolving PEPCO without eliminating root causes of its inefficiencies and forming CPPA to work with similar infrastructure and processes would be a complete failure on the part of government which will continue to hurt the country in the years to come.
PEPCO dissolution likely
According to sources, Ministry of Power and Water is likely to announce dissolution of PEPCO next week and set up Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) under its power sector reforms which will take over the duties of PEPCO. The government last year announced to dissolve PEPCO after eliminating the demand and supply gap but the gap is widening even at the start of winter and some cities are experiencing 8-10 hours power cuts daily. The government deadlines, plans and different committees formed to resolve power crisis could not propose any roadmap to eliminate the power crisis in the country, sources added.
PEPCO, a scapegoat?
Sources said that it seems that PEPCO is being used as a scapegoat to put the onus of power crisis over it. “Though PEPCO has played a part in this power crisis but its share may be only 25 per cent but other inefficient bodies like NEPRA, WAPDA and its distribution companies and even the ministry itself are hiding their inefficiencies and lack of planning abilities behind it,” they added. The political masters as well as NEPRA, the regulator, continue to play the game of make-believe as NEPRA prescribed a target of 16.5 per cent as cumulative line losses of all its distribution companies (DISCOs) in FY2010-11; but the actual losses were 19.6 per cent, with a “healthy” growth of 7.2 per cent in PESCO, 5.8 per cent in HESCO and 3.35 per cent in MEPCO. Sources said that after having lost one fifth of this very valuable resource to theft, the remainder is billed and the DISCOs fail to collect 11.5 per cent of that billed amount also, leaking more than 30 per cent of their revenue in total. Moreover, government owned power plants are highly inefficient as their average thermal efficiency is about 25 per cent to 30 per cent with some plants having efficiencies as low as 15.64 per cent and it would be a daunting task for any management to bring their efficiency level to acceptable limits, they added.
IPPs to operate in peak hours
According to sources, in private sector, average efficiency of a gas based IPP is 51 per cent while the average efficiency of furnace oil based IPP is 45 per cent which is more than twice of the government owned power plants. They said that these IPPs were asked to operate in the peak hours only to supplement the public power plants but now they are operating round the clock to help the government meet the electricity demand but even then the demand and supply gap is widening. Even though these IPPs are a major contributor to power production in the country, they are constantly suffering at the hands of government as mounting circular-debt issue is stressing them out, sources added. They said that the amount payable by PEPCO to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in operation has reached almost Rs300 billion and approximately Rs24 is billion being added to it every month due to inefficiencies of power high-ups.
Inefficiencies galore
When PEPCO fails to make payments to Independent Power Producers, they find themselves unable to pay for furnace oil, having already exhausted their borrowing limits with banks. “If the operating companies backed by private investors have been in the financial quagmire then how will new investors come to invest money in different private and public sector power generation projects?” they questioned. The inefficiencies of PEPCO and the two associated ministries have failed to attract foreign and local investors in the power sector and even existing investors are looking to offload their stakes in the power producing units. They said that investors are hesitating due to this ballooning circular-debt as well as inconsistent policies regarding fuel supply and recovery inefficiencies and line losses of PEPCO and DISCOs which in turn hurt IPPs as they are not getting their overdue amount in time.
Non dissolution of pepco is agreat loss to the employees who are waitting for promotions, there is no administration,no system , employees in core pepco are enjoying the luxrios benifits , and the other employees in pepco are suffering, the future of the employees in pepco is in danger.
May God dissolve the PEPCO
Need your guidance to do away with provinical qouta on recruitment of officers,differential chances of promotions in LESCO , HESCO , and PESCO and also on the adjustment of officers in the companies of their choice. How can you keeo the officers in non-attractive companies for very long time with no chance and promise of adjustment back. I am of the view that non interference by the outside elements and strengthening this body is the need of hour , unless other conditions are adequately filled
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