Re: Two things IK could have done better!
No.. they couldn’t..!!!
It’s a slogan which can very easily be raised in a jalsa but answer needs some understanding of the issue. It can not be answered in a jalsa.
Power generated by anyone including provincial government has to be sold to federal government. They fix the buying tariff, payment terms.. and only federal government decides the power distribution once it’s sold to them. Therefore only federal governments’s sovereign guarantees are acceptable to the financiers.
The national grid belongs to federal government.. it has nothing to do with 18th amendments. Gencos are entirely regulated by federal government and can not sell electricity to anyone except Pepco which comes under the federal government. Federal government has been doing indiscriminate load shedding in Punjab.. the matter was several time raised in CCI (Council of Common Interest).. and surety was given to Punjab at least ten times by no less than the Prime Minister of the country that Punjab will not be discriminated from National grid. However these decisions were never implemented. Punjab discos (distribution companies) had the least theft and line losses.. yet Punjab was subject to indiscriminate load shedding which created a huge job loss by the closure of industries (specially small industries).
Actually what Punjab was saying is not that you increase load shedding in other provinces to bring them at par with Punjab. They were saying to put more electricity on national grid to bring down load shedding by diverting gas from captive and other sectors to IPPs. Captive plants are very low in the priority list of the stated policy of the federal government.. while IPPs are highest on the list. This prioritization was not being followed. The captive sector in three provinces continued to get gas while there was no gas for IPPs to generate electricity for national grid.
Do you think that it is fair that around 4,000 large industrial units are provided gas to generate electricity for Rs. 5 per unit.. while a tailor or a work shop owner or a small loom factory is subjected to 18 hour load shedding and are asked to generate electricity for Rs. 35/ per unit through diesel operated generating sets. Why can’t they generate 5 rupee electricity for national grid and supply everyone for 10 rupees irrespective of the size of the consumer. This will bring down the Pepco loss also which has reached 590 billion rupees per annum and is a major factor in the huge federal deficit.. increasing inflation, causing devaluation, increasing interest rates.. etc. etc.
P.S. Punjab could generate electricity.. was nothing more than a political slogan. Even PTI guys know that..