ISLAMABAD: Almost six months after the federal cabinet decision, the government has started inducting officials from intelligence, investigation and law enforcement agencies into Sindh’s increasingly bleeding power distribution companies (Discos) to curb the energy theft, improve recoveries and improve operational efficiency.
In a notification issued over the weekend, the power division constituted a Disco Support Unit (DSU) for Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco), the first such initiative in Sindh, after prolonged political and bureaucratic resistance. The unit would remain in operation for two years.
The notification said that the director general of Sepco and the sector commander of the civil armed forces would be the director and co-director of the DSU, respectively. The 18th and 19th grade officers of the Federal Investigation Agency, Military Intelligence and Inter-Services Intelligence and the 18th grade nominees for commissioner and deputy inspector general (DIG) would be members of the DSU.
Further, the DSUs have been empowered to co-opt Grade 18 police and administrative officers from each division or rank in the Sukkur service jurisdiction with the permission of the relevant commissioners or DIGs.
The federal cabinet approved setting up of DSUs in all Discos in July last year, starting with Multan and Sukkur, and then gradually moving to other power companies to help the power division in its drive against power theft and illicit recoveries.
A senior government official said Sunrise that the DSU in Multan was activated almost a month after the cabinet decision but could not be made operational for Sukkur due to multiple challenges.
He said the experience at the DSU Multan was generally encouraging, despite some complaints. Thus, the model was repeated one after another also in the power supply companies of Lahore and Quetta.
“After many prior commitments, we have been able to get support for the creation of a DSU also in Sepco,” the official said.
DSU Sukkur has been assigned five main objectives. These include accelerating recoveries and anti-energy theft plans, reducing non-technical losses through administrative interventions, supporting improvement and implementing technical solutions, addressing administrative deficiencies by interfacing with law enforcement agencies, and civil administration and recommend the dismissal of officials and agents with poor performance. on intelligence-based evidence. The DSU would report directly to the secretary of federal power.
Ironically, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), in its latest State of the Industry Report published last week, noted that despite tariff increases and efforts to control theft, the amount of Accounts receivable from power companies had crossed Rs 2.3 trillion in the last fiscal year. year. He said the actual amounts in default exceeded Rp900 billion and the power sector’s circular debt rose to nearly Rp2.4 trillion by the end of June 2024.
“The distribution and supply segments have also not shown any improvement compared to the last year; rather, there has been a notable decline in electricity sales growth during fiscal year 2023-24. Higher than permitted T&D (transmission and distribution) losses and lower recovery rate by Discos have worsened the circular debt crisis,” the Nepra report said.
On the other hand, Energy Minister Awais Leghari said last week that governance reforms in the power sector were paying dividends.
He said the boards of eight out of 10 nightclubs were changed without political interference, resulting in their losses declining to 170 billion rupees in July-November, from 223 billion rupees a year ago. “If the remaining two boards had changed, the loss would have been reduced to Rs 140 billion as these two companies actually added Rs 30 billion more than last year,” he said.
The power division told the federal cabinet in July last year that efficient management at Discos had always been a challenge, and various models experimented in the past to achieve improvements did not entail any worthwhile results, leading to a debt and ever-increasing circular accounts receivable. making the electricity sector unsustainable.
The ESDs were therefore proposed to address the rampant mismanagement that had become a constant source of drain on the national exchequer. DSU members, in addition to their own emoluments, are also offered a certain percentage of recoveries and loss reduction as rewards.
Published in Amanecer, January 13, 2025.
