Power Division clarifies report

ISLAMABAD: Spokesperson of the Power Division while clarifying a section of press story on subject “Loss in recovery of electricity bills surges to Rs208b” has said that the story has been based on wrong figures from an unknown sources as the factual position is totally different, says a press release on Thursday.

The spokesman said that during the financial year ending June 2016 the overall recovery (without subsidy) remained 94.0 percent while in the financial year ending June 2017 the recovery (without subsidy) slightly improved to 94.1 percent.

The story however depicted that the recovery came to 85-87 percent in year 2017. The wrong figures are bound to provide base for a totally wrong story.

The spokesman further said that it seemed that the story compared monthly recovery figures with yearly recovery figures. From July to September 2016, the recovery (without subsidy) figures were 85.4 percent, however, for the period July to September 2017 the recovery (without subsidy) improved to 87.1 percent. For the corresponding months of both years even the power sector has shown improvement.

Similarly, if we compare the transmission and distribution Losses of all DISCOs, in year ending June 2016, it was 17.9 percent while in the year ending June 2017 it remained at 17.9 percent. However if we compare the same corresponding period i.e July to September, in 2016 the T&D losses were 20.9 percent while in 2017 it has reduced to 19.6 percent.

All the above comparative figures shows that there are improvements in the recovery and losses in the corresponding year. However the story totally depicted an opposite picture. It seems that the new item compared three month data of year 2017 with whole year progressive figures of year 2016 which is not judicious while comparing the scenarios.

Khalid Mustafa adds: The News stands by its story as it is based on the latest working showing that the loss in recovery of electricity bills has reduced to 85-87 percent from 94 percent which means that recovery has alarmingly reduced by 7-9 percent and if the standard of Nepra is kept in view which is 100 percent recovery, then the loss in recovery hovers around 13 to 15 percent. On account of this very bitter phenomena, the loss in Pak rupee has increased to whopping Rs208 billion which was at one time at Rs42 billion.

As far as losses are concerned, The News did not question the T&D losses. However, it did mention that out of 17.9 percent losses, consumers are paying in the tariff 16.2 percent losses valuing over Rs162 billion for the sins they did not commit. Supreme Court had asked to bring down the T&D losses in single digit when permissible losses were at 13.2 percent in the tariff. But the government forced Nepra to increase the permissible losses up to 15.2 percent in the tariff. Now under the new scenario, Nepra has again succumbed to the pressure of the government and increased the permissible losses in the tariff up to 16.2 percent.