Panther 57
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Fact 1: On June 5, Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif took the oath of the prime ministerial office. Fact 2: Soon after coming to power, the PML-N government paid off Rs480 billion worth of accumulated circular debt.
Fact 3: Over the past 330 days, the government has accumulated Rs330 billion worth of brand new circular debt – Rs1 billion per day, every day of the past 11 months.
Argument 1: The government argues that the cost of production of electricity is higher than the sale price – and thus the government ends up accumulating multi billion-rupee circular debt. Why is the government then not doing anything about the cost of production of electricity?
Just consider this: Pakistani Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are consuming up to 24 kg of oil to produce 100 kWh. Internationally, power plants take in 14 kg of oil to produce 100 kWh. Why isn’t the government after the IPPs?
Now consider this: Pakistani IPPs are consuming up to 12,000 BTUs of gas to produce a unit of electricity. In India, they are producing the same unit of electricity by taking in a mere 5,000 BTUs. Why isn’t the government questioning the IPPs?
The government’s only solution to circular debt is the doubling of the electricity tariff for consumers. The PPP government doubled the tariff and got us into more trouble than we were in before the doubling. And now the PML-N government is bent upon doubling the tariff once again. Isn’t that insane? Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Argument 2: The government also argues that the circular debt is because of ‘theft’. It is true that our line losses are around 25 percent. To be certain, there are two types of lines losses – technical and non-technical. Technical losses are because of old transformers and poor infrastructure. Non-technical losses are essentially ‘theft’.
Well, we haven’t spent much to improve our electricity infrastructure over the past 50 years – and now we have huge technical losses. Yes, there is power theft but even if we manage to imprison each and every power thief in the private sector we would still be left with at least 90 percent of the circular debt.
Conclusion: The government, by design or by default, is focusing on all the wrong places. The government, by design or by default, is missing the elephants in the room. The elephants in the room are the IPPs. The IPPs are gulping down way too much oil. And the IPPs are taking in way too much gas.
The government, by design or by default, is looking at all the wrong places for ‘thieves’. The government-owned generating companies (Gencos) have managed to steal Rs29 billion worth of furnace oil. A total of 1,920 transformers and truckloads of cables have been reported stolen. The federal government, the provincial governments and their departments owe more than Rs200 billion in past bills.
Lo and behold, exactly 482,120 minutes have passed us by over the past 11 months of PML-N rule. And we have been losing Rs1 billion a day the equivalent of Rs41 million per hour or a loss of Rs700,000 per minute every minute of the past 11 months.
Electricity, I have been told, is like faith – “you can’t see it, but you can see the light.”
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com Twitter: @saleemfarrukh
@Aeronaut @Spring Onion @jaibi @Azlan Haider @BATMAN @batmnow @Secur @Talon @Alpha1-Loves-Neptune @RASHID MEHMOOD
Fact 3: Over the past 330 days, the government has accumulated Rs330 billion worth of brand new circular debt – Rs1 billion per day, every day of the past 11 months.
Argument 1: The government argues that the cost of production of electricity is higher than the sale price – and thus the government ends up accumulating multi billion-rupee circular debt. Why is the government then not doing anything about the cost of production of electricity?
Just consider this: Pakistani Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are consuming up to 24 kg of oil to produce 100 kWh. Internationally, power plants take in 14 kg of oil to produce 100 kWh. Why isn’t the government after the IPPs?
Now consider this: Pakistani IPPs are consuming up to 12,000 BTUs of gas to produce a unit of electricity. In India, they are producing the same unit of electricity by taking in a mere 5,000 BTUs. Why isn’t the government questioning the IPPs?
The government’s only solution to circular debt is the doubling of the electricity tariff for consumers. The PPP government doubled the tariff and got us into more trouble than we were in before the doubling. And now the PML-N government is bent upon doubling the tariff once again. Isn’t that insane? Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Argument 2: The government also argues that the circular debt is because of ‘theft’. It is true that our line losses are around 25 percent. To be certain, there are two types of lines losses – technical and non-technical. Technical losses are because of old transformers and poor infrastructure. Non-technical losses are essentially ‘theft’.
Well, we haven’t spent much to improve our electricity infrastructure over the past 50 years – and now we have huge technical losses. Yes, there is power theft but even if we manage to imprison each and every power thief in the private sector we would still be left with at least 90 percent of the circular debt.
Conclusion: The government, by design or by default, is focusing on all the wrong places. The government, by design or by default, is missing the elephants in the room. The elephants in the room are the IPPs. The IPPs are gulping down way too much oil. And the IPPs are taking in way too much gas.
The government, by design or by default, is looking at all the wrong places for ‘thieves’. The government-owned generating companies (Gencos) have managed to steal Rs29 billion worth of furnace oil. A total of 1,920 transformers and truckloads of cables have been reported stolen. The federal government, the provincial governments and their departments owe more than Rs200 billion in past bills.
Lo and behold, exactly 482,120 minutes have passed us by over the past 11 months of PML-N rule. And we have been losing Rs1 billion a day the equivalent of Rs41 million per hour or a loss of Rs700,000 per minute every minute of the past 11 months.
Electricity, I have been told, is like faith – “you can’t see it, but you can see the light.”
The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad. Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com Twitter: @saleemfarrukh
@Aeronaut @Spring Onion @jaibi @Azlan Haider @BATMAN @batmnow @Secur @Talon @Alpha1-Loves-Neptune @RASHID MEHMOOD
You mixed these two.
