The country's electricity sector is marred by too many ills. Woefully flawed electricity or power systems largely characterized by weaknesses in power generation and a creaking distribution network. These shortcomings too often cause higher incidence of line losses. In addition to power theft and little or no payment of electricity bills by a large number of consumers, overbilling by Discos causes a great deal of inconvenience and hardships to a vast majority of consumers who receive electricity through the national grid and regularly pay their bills. Until recently, the government had shown reluctance to admit its failure in the area of billing or account receivables. The newly-appointed minister for power looks likely to bring some change: for one thing, Awais Leghari has made bold admission about the abject failure of his own government. Leghari (who happens to be the son of the late president Farooq Leghari), told the National Assembly on Tuesday that the government plans to introduce a legislation that will make over-charging or overbilling by the Discos a punishable crime. He was responding to an opposition calling-attention notice regarding the unjustified overbilling discouraging consumers from installing meters and paying their bills. "There is no doubt that there are major inefficiencies in our Discos. Over the past many years, the government has focused on power generation or the supply side, and we have managed to streamline power generation and transmission issues to such an extent that soon we will have surplus power generation." He acknowledged that consumers who "have had meters installed, have been forced to bear the burden" of those who freely use electricity without bothering about a meter.

This is a frank and objective assessment of the electricity situation in Pakistan, and he is someone who took charge of this ministry less than a week ago. Unlike his predecessor, Khawaja Asif, the current foreign minister and the incumbent minister of state Abid Sher Ali, he has displayed an approach to the electricity challenge that has given hope to the millions of consumers who often have to make complaints to the Discos about over-charging and overbilling. Or else they must approach Nepra, the national power regulator, in this regard but to little or no avail. The minister revealed something else in his address: that people are reluctant to install meters in his constituency although he had used the bulk of his development funds to get around 7,000 to 8,000 meters installed, because consumers whose meters have not even been connected to power supply are receiving bills. The country lacks the culture of fair billings and prompt payments, and this absence is more pronounced in the power sector than anywhere else. Power theft is a norm rather than an exception not only in the rural areas where tube-wells consume most of the power but also in planned urban areas and industrial estates in industrial towns big and small. The Discos, therefore, often resort to overbilling in order to reduce their own losses as their efforts at penalizing power thieves or chronic power defaulters are often stymied by almost powerful individuals and groups - in other words, anyone wielding clout. PTI MNA Sajid Nawaz, who was one of the movers of the calling-attention notice, was at pains to mention that ordinary consumers are being handed over to the National Accountability Bureau for failure to pay their bills while those with influence get away scot-free.

So the government looks to have decided to introduce a law that will not only stipulate criminal proceedings against those involved in power theft; erring Discos will also face action for overbilling. This is a very welcome move, for a variety of reasons. There will be surplus power available from December this year to plug the supply-demand gap in a system blighted by chronic transmission problems. A marked improvement in power generation and supply - together with betterment in its billing-payment mechanism - is bound to help reduce the current power tariffs in the country that have raised the cost of doing business to what it is now, rendering Pakistan's exports uncompetitive against those of its regional competitors. The new measures will also help reduce the size of the stock of power-sector debt that has soared to Rs 800 billion. Besides, successful execution of the $56 billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor cannot be achieved without power-sector reforms in the country.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017