Nargis Sethi says they have prepared a plan for curtailing line losses and improving recovery status of bills receivable
Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar chaired a meeting of the committee formed by the prime minister on energy resource rationalisation for power sector at the finance ministry on Saturday.
In his opening remarks, Dar said the finance ministry was on track on releasing the amount of subsidy to life line power consumers. As far as receivables are concerned, he said, it was responsibility of the ministry of water and power to adopt means and measures to stop the pilferages from the system. He emphasized that if there was any component which was not included in the cost then it’s the work of ministry of water and power and NEPRA.
He urged the committee to identify the issues and give a clear roadmap to achieve the specific targets. He also underlined the need for a task force for recovery of outstanding dues of the ministry of water and power.
Water and Power Secretary Nargis Sethi in her detailed presentation briefed the finance minister on the overall condition of receivable bills, thefts and collection status by the ministry of water and power. According to her, they have prepared a plan for curtailing line losses and improving the recovery status of the bills receivable. She informed that encouraging results were emerging in the light of decisions recently taken by the ministry to recover the outstanding dues.
The finance minister directed the secretary water and power to establish and quantify the factors which were not accounted to in determining the cost of production. “The estimates should be credible and NEPRA should be taken on board while calculating the real cost of production,” said the minister. He also directed the secretary water and power to give a detailed briefing on the actual collection figures in the first week of August for the purposes of future strategy to improve recovery of outstanding dues. He further said that data of life line consumers should be collected. He underlined the need to discourage the practice of installing multiple meters in one house in order to avoid actual billing.
Dr Musadik Malik, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister, gave a detailed presentation on proposals for improving the recovery situation and for halting the re-emergence of the circular debt in future. It was decided by the committee that 8900 feeders will be marked and the concerned discos will be given clear targets for curtailing losses and improving recovery. The ministry of water and power will monitor their performance and appropriate action will be taken in the light of the results.
It was further decided that targets should be set for installation of meters at feeder and discos level and Special Assistant to PM Dr Musadik Malik will be in charge of the whole process of implementation and monitoring. It was also decided that incentives should be given for better performance at the feeder and discos levels.
The meeting was also attended by Rana Assad Amin, Advisor to Finance Ministry, Shahid Mahmood Additional Finance Secretary/SA to the finance minister, and senior officials of the ministries of finance and water and power.
