LAHORE – Experts have stressed the need to take measures to reduce the production cost of electricity as it would help pass on relief to the end consumers.
The experts in the discussion on ‘Increase in power tariffs – impact on consumers affordability, DISOCS recoveries and circular debt’, suggested the appointment of professionals in Discos, increase in power generation from indigenous resources and renewables and separating the financial recoveries like taxes and fees of other departments form electricity bills.
“The good power paying consumers shall be protected and power thieves penalized”, experts say at the event organized by the Lahore Economic Journalists Association (LEJA).
The Chairman LESCO Board Hafiz Muhammad Numan said that the government increased the power tariff under the IMF pressure, besides the capacity charges being paid to the IPPs which played a major role in the tariff hike.
However, the company is still getting 30,000 fresh connection applications every month since electricity is the basic need of life.
The LESCO has planned to establish its police, and is requesting the Punjab government to link any of the property transactions with LESCO NOC, he said.
During the last 11 months, the LESCO response time has been down to one hour from three hours.
Energy Expert (former MD PEPCO) Tahir Basharat Cheema said that the capacity payment charges issues could be resolved if the government ends the forced load management. There is still more than 5000 megawatt demand in the system which could be immediately supplied from the available resources.
He suggested ending the uniform tariff policy, saying discos would work more efficiently after that. He asked to end the load of all taxes, and the fee which is almost 30 per cent of the total bill of almost each consumer.
