The government has taken no action to curb theft of electricity, instead, has relied on increasing electricity prices.
LAHORE: This is with reference to the article “Tariff rationalisation: myth and reality” (November 3) by Moosa Raza. The writer has shown only one side of the picture without laying any blame on the government regarding its faulty policies. The writer failed to mention that Nepra also has to account for loss of electricity due to distribution and theft. All over the world, the acceptable range of line losses is 10 to 12 per cent; however, in our case, these go up to 35 per cent in the case of Hesco and 40 per cent for Tesco. The present government has taken no action to curb this theft of electricity and, instead, has relied on increasing electricity prices via Nepra and overcharge the already honest consumers. The induction of the FIA to curb electricity theft in DISCOs has also proved to be a futile exercise.
The federal government needs to follow the ‘KESC Model’, which has been successfully implemented in Karachi. Areas where recovery of bills is high are immune from load-shedding, whereas areas with low recoveries bear the brunt of major load-shedding. In this manner, KESC is incentivising its consumers to pay their bills on time without resorting to theft. Moreover, it severs connections of those households and industries which continue to default on their payments. So, a carrot and stick policy is effectively working in Karachi and the same can be employed in the rest of the country.
Omer Butt
Published in The Express Tribune, November 6th, 2013.
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