March 8, 2019: Minister for Power Omar Ayub Khan Friday informed Senate that Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOos) had been directed to recover the outstanding dues of Rs 42.453 billion, owned by the federal and provincial governments, by the end of the current calendar year.

The minister in written reply told the House that outstanding amount of Rs 31.3 billion was owed by the provinces to the power companies. Punjab still had to pay Rs six billion, while Rs eight billion were owed by Sindh, Rs one billion by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Rs 14 billion by Balochistan, he added.

The minister said the generation companies (GENCO) had sustained total losses of 0.079 billion units of electricity during the last two years. The reasons for loss of electricity were that units of GENCOs were old, having low design efficiency, therefore these were mostly kept in standby mode by the system operator during the last two years.

During standby periods, auxiliary consumption mainly remained intact, resulting in loss of electricity. GENCOs power plants were operated on furnace oil and gas.

Due to limited availability of the said fuels during last two years power plants of GENCOs faced forced shutdowns which also resulted in loss of units of electricity. Some GENCOs power stations such as Northern Power Generation Company Multan, Steam Power Station Faisalabad and Fluidized Bed Combustion (FBC) Lakhra had been declared defunct or had been permanently shut down but necessary auxiliary was kept operative as per requirement of the shutdown units, he explained.

The minister said as the losses were pure technical, any individual was not responsible for loss of units of electricity, therefore no action had been taken by the GENCOs.

He said the government was actively working to set up renewable energy projects. The Saudi Crown Prince during his visit to Pakistan had announced to invest $ four billion in energy power projects including those of renewable energy.

He said 1800 megawatts were being acquired from nuclear power plants in the country, adding nuclear safety standards of Pakistan were among the best in the world.

The minister said that distribution companies had been instructed to improve safety standards for workers by conducting trainings and providing them equipment.

Packages for the workers who fell victims to accidents had been increased and jobs to their children had been given, he added.

He said the power distribution company in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa would be bifurcated and investment would be made to improve grids and electricity supply system.

Rs 2.5 billion would be invested to acquire aerial bundled cable to upgrade the electricity distribution system while Asian Development Bank (ADB) would spend $500 million on the development and upgradation of Peshawar electric supply company.

The Senate was told that Rs 20 billion were spent on the maintenance of nuclear power plants in the country in a year.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan said Chashma Nuclear Power Project Unit 5 (C-5), having capacity of 1100 megawatts, would be built at a cost of Rs 492 billion in Kundian district, Mianwali and expected to be operational in August, 2026.

He said commercial contract for the nuclear power project (C-5) had been signed on November 21, 2017.

 (APP)

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