Minister of Energy reveals harsh truth about electricity bills
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Worried Minister of Energy , Mohammad Ali, has said that it is difficult to reduce electricity prices until there is a decrease in the dollar exchange rate. No action has been taken against IPPs, and there is no support for IPPs. They are not working on reducing the 60% billing recovery.
He mentioned that the agreements with IPPs included changing the return from dollars to rupees in 2020 when the dollar rate was frozen at 148. If the dollar had not been frozen, IPPs would have been paid at 300 today. The government has saved 75 billion rupees in the last three years. Agreements with IPPs are at the international level under British law and court jurisdiction. At that time, IPPs were brought to 148 rupees by presenting ground realities.
In today's date, IPPs in Pakistan are governed by three types of policies.
1. There was a policy from 1994 that is expiring in 25 years.
2. The policy from 2002, under which all their debt has been paid off.
3. The policy from 2015, under which they are IPPs involved in international investment.
Therefore, we cannot terminate their contracts; we have examined everything in detail. As for electricity theft, theft and non-payment of bills are separate issues.
Currently, our 5 DISCOs have a problem; there is no recovery for the units stolen in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. These DISCOs include Peshawar, Quetta, HESCO, SEPCO, and TESCO. The performance of the five DISCOs in Punjab is better. Things cannot be fixed overnight. The electricity generated in the world comes from petrol, hydel, and solar. No action has been taken against IPPs. They are not being supported, and we are not working on reducing the 60% billing recovery.
