Vice President, Pakistan Businesses Forum (PBF) Ahmad Jawad said government appears to be helpless in controlling the circular debt that has now swelled by Rs260 billion in the first ten months of the current fiscal. Though the government is claiming that it has controlled the buildup, the broader picture is not very convincing.
It is lower than the Rs449 billion buildup in the corresponding period of the last fiscal year, but this has happened mainly because of the power tariff increases meted out to consumers. “transferring the burden of the debt on consumers of power is not a sound strategy to tackle this issue”.
“Ahmad Jawad said the power distribution companies (Discos) are in shambles both technically and financially also in lack of accountability”.
As a matter of fact, the power distribution sector performance has been always highly unsatisfactory and far from acceptable standards of quality and reliability . Power distribution in the country had been plagued with high corruption , inefficiency, and lack of poor engineering practices .
Non – adherence to standards in the construction and proper maintenace of distribution lines & equipment and haphazard installation of metering apparatus / service cables and wires contribute to the very poor service to the consumers at large.
Besides, these factors contribute to frequent breakdowns , fatal accidents and encourage power thefts with and without the involvement of line staff of the distribution companies . “Due to public dealing , the element of corruption creeps in causing huge financial losses to the exchequer”. There has been little training in force to the field staff and their supervisors resulting in poor workmanship .
One can observe ugly scenes of meters mounting on poles with freely hanging wires & cables . In short , there is no professioalism and good engineering practices on the part of the concerned staff of Discos . Also , there is insufficient or neglible supervision by the higher officers to check the quality of work of their line staff on a regular basis . NEPRA’s call for the privatisation of Discos is unlikely going to be fruitful . K Electric example is there . Their service is as bad as of Discos. Going from one monopoly to another is not going to solve the problems. Privatisation of a utility is only beneficial when there is a strong will with merit and transparency.
otherwise , overall , it may cause more harm than good . Unless the root causes of the problems are addressed , the things are not going to improve . That calls for rooting out corruption and inefficiency and to take measures to inculcate “ professioalism “ in the disco’s with service oriented approach.
Further, the government is prompt in its collection of bills from common consumers, we do not see the same alacrity when it comes to big defaulters who have been enjoying subsidies for long.
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