(Web Desk) Federal Minister for Energy, Sardar Owais Khan Leghari started delaying giving relief to the people on electricity prices. He says that it is premature to give any timeline for the implementation of relief on electricity prices.
In an interview given to Voice of America, Energy Minister Owais Leghari said that he will not unilaterally terminate or change the contracts with private power plants, i.e. IPPs, but the government is persuading them to new conditions by explaining their constraints. In this regard, the progress is going on in an active manner, in the next one or two months, the nation will get positive news regarding IPPs. The government cannot play the bandwagon in this regard, they will act responsibly.
It is said that at the time when there was a power crisis in the country, a country invested and did so on terms that no one else in the world was doing, then the spirit of the agreements with it cannot be removed, when the IP If Piz invests in dollars, then the payment will be in dollars, which country borrows in dollars and returns in local currency, as a result of reforms in the energy sector, electricity prices in Pakistan will soon be similar to other countries in the region. It is not that the production cost of electricity in the country is high, but the rent of power plants and loan repayments are making electricity expensive per unit, which is affecting the income of the common man and people are using their own money to pay the electricity bills. They are forced to spend savings.
Energy Minister Owais Leghari said that during the visit to China, it was agreed to “reprofiling” the Chinese loans given to Pakistan in the energy sector and that Chinese companies operating power plants should use local coal instead of imported coal. These two measures are being implemented after a consensus was reached with Chinese energy companies operating in Pakistan during the Prime Minister’s visit to China.
He said that 90 percent of the dues are being paid on time and only about 10 percent of the payments are delayed. will be resolved.
On the announcement of the Punjab government’s reduction in electricity bills, the Energy Minister advised other provinces and said that like Punjab, other provincial governments should also take steps to give discounts on electricity bills to the people, those sections whose income is major. Part goes towards paying the electricity bills, the provincial governments should come forward for their social security, if the provincial governments themselves bear the additional burden of providing cheap electricity to the people, then they should not be paying huge sums for it. will be
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The Minister of Energy said that Punjab has allocated 45 billion rupees from its development budget and given a discount of 14 rupees per unit to the poor and middle class and if Sindh follows the same pattern, it will need 10 billion rupees and 8 billion rupees to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. will be
In response to a question, Energy Minister Owais Leghari said that the federal government is working on many aspects to make electricity cheaper and they do not want to announce it prematurely, any government responsible for expensive electricity in the country. Or not the policy of the past, but the country is suffering from a bad economic condition, the biggest burden on the price of electricity has been due to the extraordinary fall in the value of the rupee and only due to the fall of the rupee, there has been an increase of eight rupees per unit. The government allocated Rs 50 billion to subsidize electricity bills to the public, through which 200 units were used by the middle class to get cheap electricity.
Regarding IPPs, the Energy Minister clarified that the IPPs policy is not the cause of expensive electricity. In this regard, the task force is working on its review report, the impact of which will be revealed to the nation soon. Shifting power plants to local coal is a huge change. A railway line is being laid to transport the coal mined from Thar to the power plants.
It should be noted that on August 16, former Prime Minister and Muslim League (N) President Nawaz Sharif had said that relief of Rs 14 per unit will be given to those who use up to 500 units of electricity in Punjab.
2024-08-24 10:34:29