News
Tuesday, July 02, 2013
SC seeks provinces’ view on power payment from NFC Award* Asks finance secretary to explain federation’s position on the matter
Staff Report
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday sought responses from the chief secretaries of all the provinces about the proposal of purchasing electricity in bulk and its payment deducted in advance from the National Finance Commission (NFC) Award.
The court had proposed the out-of-the-box solution for the elimination of circular debt that let the provincial governments receive bulk supply of electricity proportionally for consumption in the industries, commercial, domestic and other sectors. It had also observed that the provincial governments should take responsibility to control pilferage, leakage and theft of electricity and gas in their respective provinces.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and comprising Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed and Justice Gulzar Ahmed heard the suo motu regarding unprecedented load shedding in the country.
The bench asked the finance secretary to appear before the court and explain the federation’s position on the issue. It noted that prima facie it is not difficult to achieve the target of power production in the country if there is better management.
The SNGPL general manager explained to the court that there is 10 percent UFG (Unaccounted For Gas) and out of that 5 percent could be controlled. The chief justice said if the UFG is not reduced and theft of gas controlled then the gas companies would not be in a position to supply gas to IPPs and GENCOS as per required by them.
The court directed both SSGC and SNGPL to file the complete detail of the gas supply to captive power plants(CPP) and the accurate figure of electricity purchased by the National Transmission and Distribution Company (NTDC) from them.
The court observed that PEPCO did not have the complete data about the production of the electricity in the country, as its MD had failed to satisfy the bench about the electricity production by KANUPP, CPP and IPPs in Karachi. The hearing of the case has been adjourned for two weeks.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk