ACCORDING to Federal Minister for Power, Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, says the Government will roll over new incentive packages during the next two months to provide relief to the industrial sector. The forthcoming schemes will feature both seasonal and year-round incentives, designed to bolster industrial energy consumption and alleviate current power constraints. And a related report says the Government is also considering bringing down the rate of equity for public sector power projects as part of the strategy to make the energy tariff affordable for people.
Various studies have revealed that Pakistan has a surplus generation capacity, which becomes a serious liability in winter when the demand for power is minimum for understandable reasons. The issue of capacity payments to IPPs can be addressed to some extent if incentives are devised and provided to different categories of consumers to make positive use of this surplus capacity. In this backdrop, it is encouraging that the proposed packages also take care of this aspect and to enhance electricity demand, seasonal electricity tariffs would be launched ahead of the upcoming winter, encouraging automobile firms to rapidly grow the electric vehicle segment and providing discounted financing for hybrid automobiles. Ahead of winter, the government would also offer discounted and installment-based financing for electric home appliances, particularly in water heating and space heating. However, it is to be seen what exactly is the nature of the incentives as the existing tariff makes it unlikely to encourage consumers to opt for e-vehicles and the scheme might ultimately face the same fate as we witnessed in the case of mad rush for CNG kits for vehicles. As for packages for the industrial sector, it is the need of the hour as plants are closing down because of the heavy cost of production. The Prime Minister had recently announced reduced rates for industries but these did not prove to be helpful and further incentive is needed to stimulate the sector and the economy. There is also logic in demands that the Ministry of Power should conduct a comparative study of neighbouring and regional countries as this could help determine what went wrong here and how it can be corrected.
