Reforms Underway To Uplift Power Sector: Minister

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 30th May, 2024) Federal Minister for Power, Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari said on Thursday that the government has identified power sector issues and committed to resolve it through much needed reforms.

Talking to a private news channel, he said that the power sector was facing issues of power generation, line losses in transmission, distribution network issues and electricity theft.

These issues will be resolved through privatization process, shift to Thar coal instead of imported coal and adopted multi-prompt strategies.

He said that weak governance of distribution companies and the political influence in boards led the distribution companies towards inefficiencies. These issues ultimately caused us under the burden of circular debts, he added.

In response to a query about load shedding, the minister said that today, the peak demand for electricity was 25,000 MW compared to the supply of 21,000 MW, with a shot fall of 4,000 MW.

An economic load shedding is scheduled on feeders located in those areas where power theft is from 20 to 90 percent, he added.

He further said that if we don’t cut the power on these feeders, the loss is expected to reach from 500 billion to 1200 billion per year in the form of circular debt.

Aggressive strategy has been made to prevent electricity theft, under which we plan to engage law enforcement agencies in federal as well as in the provinces to make the country theft free, he added.

He said "Government stands completely steadfast on its resolve to bring the country power theft free."