US to help Pakistan develop safety code

Measures to help protect human capital, infrastructure.

ISLAMABAD: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through its Power Distribution Programme seeks to provide assistance to the government in its efforts to reform the power sector and mitigate the current crisis plaguing Pakistan’s energy chain.

The programme will help distribution companies improve their performance through a reduction in losses by adopting efficiency, increased revenues and enhanced customer services.

In this regard, a workshop for the development of a National Electric Safety Code (NESC) was held on Wednesday in collaboration with the Pakistan Engineering Council and USAID. The workshop was attended by experts from both the private and the public sector including prominent safety experts from across the country.

While addressing the workshop, the USAID Power Distribution Programme Senior Adviser Engineering Dick Dumford praised the initiative of NESC. “NESC will go a long way in reducing the number of casualties as well as serious injuries that in the past could not be avoided due to an absence of a comprehensive safety code,” he said.

“In order to curtail the losses of infrastructure and human lives including employees and general public, a NESC is to be developed, which will be applicable to power sector, communication companies, operation and maintenance companies, and their relevant contractors and manufacturers,” said Robert Kolling, senior distribution adviser of the USAID Power Distribution Programme.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 27^th, 2013.

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