KARACHI: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) Tuesday said distribution companies (DISCOs) of Pakistan, including the Karachi Electric, had failed to improve performance in 2016 and caused a loss of Rs 132 billion to the national exchequer.
“Discos and KE contributed around Rs 49 billion and Rs 83 billion losses, respectively, to national exchequer in 2015-16 due to their inefficiency with respect to transmission and distribution (T&D) losses and recovery targets, NEPRA said in a statement.
According to the NEPRA, the reported figures of T&D losses indicate that except Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO), none of the distribution company could meet the regulator’s expectations. On the other hand, Sukkur Electricity Power Company (SEPCO) has shown the worst performance among all distribution companies.
The data of load shedding provided by DISCOs– including the KE – shows that both have shed the load from one to four hours daily, which is far away from ground realities. The NEPRA said it was a matter of concern that DISCOs and KE were not following the order of load shedding according to different categories of consumers as provided in Performance Standards (Distribution) Rules, 2005.
“Similarly, data of consumer service complaints submitted by DISCOs and KE shows the contradictory situation as the reported figures of number of complaints are not based on factual positions,” said the regulator.
The KE reported that it carried out averagely 1.33 hours load shedding on a daily basis in Karachi, which is far away from factual position. The NEPRA team, during its visit of different distribution companies, had observed load shedding of eight to ten hours in urban and ten to 12 hours in rural areas on certain feeders.
The power regulator in its performance evaluation reports (PERs) claimed that the authority has already initiated a strict action against fake reporting by the distribution companies, and was trying to bring them within the frame of compliance of performance standards based on facts. “As far as recovery is concerned, Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (FESCO) has achieved 100 percent target while IESCO, Gujranwala Electric Power Company (GEPCO), Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) and Multan Electricity Power Company (MEPCO) have also reported more than 99 percent recoveries. The Quetta Electricity Supply Company (QESCO) has improved its recovery from 32.6 percent to 71.6 percent in 2015- 16 as compared to 2014-15.”
The NEPRA added that main reasons of technical losses were lengthy distribution lines, inadequate size of conductors, installation of distribution transformers away from load centres, transformer sizing and selection and bad workmanship, etc., due to which these companies had failed to achieve the targets. Given that performance, the IESCO was the top-ranked distribution company, while the KE was ranked 6th amongst ten DISCOs of the country.
According to the report, the ranking of DISCOs is as follows: IESCO, GEPCO, MEPCO, FESCO, LESCO, KE, PESCO, HESCO, QESCO and SEPCO.
It may be noted that KE, PESCO, QESCO and SEPCO have remained in bottom five positions as in 2014-15 i.e. 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th , and 10th, respectively.
Published in Daily Times, October 4th 2017.
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