KARACHI: The Power Information Technology Company (PITC) from the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) Islamabad in its initial response on NEPRA report has raised many serious objections, regarding the matter of excessive billing by Distribution Companies (DISCOs) and said they were inaccurate/ invalid resulting in exaggerated and false statistics of the relevant indicators.

According to PITC, based on detailed analysis of the inquiry report published by NEPRA, the key conclusions that may be drawn and shall require due consideration in the future process of issuance of sectoral reports were that:

Most of the data sets employed by NEPRA’s professionals in their respective analyses were inaccurate/invalid resulting in exaggerated and false statistics of the relevant indicators.

The report suffers from issues of quality control and arithmetic & data processing errors, as indicated in section 2.2 of this report.

An unrepresentative and biased random sampling approach was utilized by the professionals of NEPRA which is in contravention to the fundamental concept and practices adopted for the purpose of random sampling.

The consideration of the ground realities and operational constraints of the distribution business, inter-alia, weekends & gazette holidays, feeder bifurcations, etc. were not incorporated in the due process of analysis.

Lack of robust exploratory data analysis and absence of cross-validation mechanism in the inquiry report mislead the focus to the applicable billing process and resulted in sensationalism.

It may be mentioned that NEPRA, on December 4, 2023, had issued an inquiry report regarding the matter of excessive billing by Distribution Companies (DISCOs). In order to evaluate the findings of the NEPRA’s inquiry report and processes adopted there under the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) devised a two-pronged strategy.

All the DISCOs were directed to evaluate and provide detailed analysis on the assumptions, process and findings of the inquiry report.

An independent and impartial committee was constituted vide office order No. 12(35)/2018-DISCO-II dated 6th December, 2023 to review the basis/ assumptions, methodology and findings of the NEPRA’s inquiry report and submit recommendations for the consideration of the competent authority. The committee comprised of the following four members:

Irfan Ali, Former Federal Secretary, Zargham Ishaq Khan, MD, NESPAK, Abid Lodhi, Industry Expert/ Consultant USAID, and Dr. Fiaz Chaudhry, Director Energy Institute, LUMS.

This report is the initial response to the NEPRA’s inquiry report which is preliminary based on the analysis and findings that were received from various DISCOs and Power Information Technology Company (PITC). The Ministry of Energy (Power Division) will not take the final verdict prior to the submission of the detailed findings by the independent committee, informed sources disclosed.

Published in The Daily National Courier, April, 24 2024

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