According to reports, the caretaker government has decided to end the current electricity sales, distribution and tariff system, under which the electricity distribution companies will be owned by the provinces. By abolishing the uniform tariff of electricity across the country, the responsibility of electricity rates and subsidies in each province will be transferred to the provinces.

Hyderabad and Sukkur Electric Supply Company  will be with Sindh, Quetta Electric Company Balochistan, Lahore Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Multan Punjab and Peshawar and Tribal Area Electric Supply Company are proposed to be owned by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while Islamabad Electric Supply Company is owned by Punjab and the Federation will be joint.

It has been approved to send the summary of transfer of power distribution companies to the ownership of the provinces to the federal cabinet and the policy framework for handing over the power distribution companies to the provinces has been prepared.

A policy framework has been prepared to transfer power distribution companies to the provinces. The reason for this decision is that the national exchequer is not able to bear the burden due to electricity theft and non-recovery.

However, it is not clear that what will be the benefit of this decision to the public?

This measure taken by justifying the failure to stop electricity theft and collect dues is actually an admission of defeat by the federal government against electricity thieves.

The question is whether the provinces will be able to perform better in this matter.

The fear is that the situation will worsen in these respects, billions of dues will turn into trillions and the burden of electricity thieves will have to be borne by the poor people in the mill of inflation.

Therefore, it is better to stop electricity theft and recover the dues. By taking strict measures and withdrawing free electricity, gas and petrol facilities from the privileged classes, the national treasury should be stabilized and the people should not be put in more trouble.

On the other hand, alternative resources of energy should also be explored.

It is our misfortune that the coal reserves in Thar are equivalent to the total 400 billion barrels of oil reserves of Saudi Arabia and Iran, which can generate 100,000 megawatts of electricity annually for 200 years, but despite the passage of 76 years, we have not found this black gold. We could not generate electricity from the ground and kept importing expensive furnace oil and gas to generate electricity, which was due to the powerful bureaucracy of the past, which did not allow a policy to generate electricity from coal under the pressure of international oil companies.

An impression was that electricity cannot be generated due to high sulfur and humidity in the coal of Thar, but now 2 projects are successfully generating 1980 megawatts of electricity from the same coal of Thar through new technology, which is about 18% of our total electricity production.

 The first project of 660 MW with Engro was completed in July 2019 and the second project of 1320 MW under CPEC with Shanghai Electric was completed in February 2023. In March this year, two power projects of electricity as part of the CPEC project in Islamkot were inaugurated.

The production capacity of these projects is 1,650 megawatt of electricity, which is a good omen for the desert.

The projects are the result of amicable work of both Federal and provincial governments and one hopes the same spirit will prevail in future as well. Both these plants i.e., the 1,320 megawatt Shanghai Electric and 330 MW Thal Nova have the capacity to generate 11.24 billion units of electricity annually and that too at low cost. It may be mentioned here that currently we mainly depend on hydel and thermal power for electricity production and the share of solar and other renewable resources in power production is only three and half per cent which needs to be increased rapidly. With the huge and abnormal increase in prices of electricity, it has become definite that the situation is becoming dire for the majority of the electricity consumers, who are going to be impacted badly by this substantial rise. On the one hand, the power resources are shrinking while at the same time the demand for power utilitis is on the rise. Power tariff has already reached a level of record high per unit as not only basic power tariff has been increased per unit, but further surcharges per unit are also added to it. The government announced the jacking up of power prices because it had to meet the IMF conditionality which were to be met with for securing the IMF grant without which the country would be unable to pay back the international loan installments due this year. It may be mentioned here that there is already a high tax rate on the electricity bills at around 22pc and after the addition of new tax rates imposed in recent months, the power prices will be further up the per-unit cost by another massive amount, which means that practically, the domestic consumers will have to pay Rs 49 per unit which is catastrophic in nature, and can result in social anarchy as it will badly impact the middle and lower middle class. Same is the case with the gas prices, which are also on the high side. In this back drop, the search and shifting to alternative power resources which are indigenous in nature, is a welcome augury. Thar Coal Project is one such plan to switch over to cheap and individual sources of energy and it must be commended and utilized in real sense of the word as it can prove to a be game-changer for the uplift of the country which is reeling under extreme shortage of power resources. According to financial experts, the Thar Coal Project is something that be reckon with as it can definitely help the nation save up to  huge $6 billion as our import bill is going out of proportion. In fact time has come that both the federal government, in collaboration with the Sindh government, should devise a joint policy framework on the Thar coal mines project so that this game-changer project can benefit the entire country and for that the main objective should be to connect it with other coal-powered plants across the country. It is good to see that the electricity produced through is a feasible option as  electricity production at these coal powered plants will be provided at the affordable rate.

Published in The Daily National Courier, August, 24 2023

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