KARACHI: NEPRA Chairman’s mysterious visit to UAE became talk of town in what capacity he took an irrelevant team’s visit abroad by wasting precious foreign exchange while economy of country was already in ICU facing severe crisis of forex shortage. Aneel Mumtaz electricity analyst talking to Daily National Courier stated, “Tauseef H. Farooqi is head of regulatory body National Electric Power Regulatory Authority.

He is not authorised to conduct promotional campaign for any one of utilities under his authority. But in violation of this rule, last week he had gone to Dubai for tender bidding invitation conference of Alternative Energy Development Board proposed 600 MW Solar PV Project to be installed at Kot Addu. From there he visited Abu Dhabi to offer Fateha at his mother’s grave, informed sources.

According to Aneel Mumtaz, solar, wind and nuclear power plants are not called dependable technically. These may be used as backup support while real dependable sources are only hydel and thermal plants. That’s why 900 MW Solar Quaid-e-Azam plant at Bahawalpur is lying idle without any benefit, he added. As per claims by NEPRA, presently more than 40 thousand MW plants are already installed in country but nation is getting only 24 thousand MW of electricity with deficiency of 16 thousand MW useless capacities. Even then NEPRA has allowed another 600 MW plant just to further waste national resources.

This is horrible situation for an energy-starved country and its poor people who are charged with heavy power tariffs but are gifted with frequent load shedding. Markets, shops, restaurants, marriage halls, and shopping malls are forced to close between 8am and 10pm by Commissioner Karachi. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Finance Minster Dar must take cognisance of this pathetic situation and fire this useless Chairman NEPRA immediately, Aneel Mumtaz urged.

Published in The Daily National Courier, March, 13 2023

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