The government has decided to initiate a survey of electricity consumers to address issues of power theft, line losses, power companies’ losses and circular debt.

According to sources in the ministry of finance, power distribution companies will conduct the survey, which is part of a broader strategy chalked out by the Asian Development Bank, the World Bank and the Planning Commission to tackle the energy crisis.

A survey for the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) has already been finalised as part of a pilot project. Feedback from the project will be funnelled into finalising the survey for power distribution companies.

The survey is expected to discover the amount of electricity consumed by each consumer, the number of commercial, industrial and residential consumers in each distribution company’s vicinity, the amount of electricity consumed by public institutions and the amount of defaulters in each category.

According to the current project, the size of electricity bills will also be reduced. In the IESCO pilot project, bills are expected to be reduced in size by 20 to 25 per cent. The project will also collect data on consumers by partnering with the National Database Registration Authority (Nadra). Proposals to bill consumers through email and text messaging are also under consideration.

From Tribune

The post takes a look at the energy crisis in pakistan and the concerns raised by different sectors of the society and published in the media. I’ve listed number of articles from different news papers and a few sites etc.

In this 2007 article from NEWS, the situation is predicted to get even worse! The article is more of a criticism rather then a comprehensive problem solving note. It states the past unlawful decisions took by the government officials. Its just an article with educating people with the redefined and previously stated claims of the top officials. The figures are comprehensively given to exact measures but then again it adds more to the problem rather then the problem solving matter it self. The article also discusses the claims done by WAPDA and then again changing the strategies adding much more expense to the projects and lessening the chances of future stability.

Here’s another discussion from the defense forum site . The post mainly focuses on the oil, gas and water issues and explains it self how the growing needs in future are going to take the economic growth down. It encompasses on the political instability in the Baluchistan region resulting in the extreme shortage of gas. The industrial supply is mainly closed or very little of it is available so the industrial sector is facing a very hard time dealing with such problems. In the future the conditions are going to be worse as the percentage of consumption of oil, gas and water are to be doubled. 

In this news report, the government’s point of view is expressed. The minister of water and power Mr. Raja Parvez said on account of the extreme water and electricity crisis nationwide. He makes statements that ” keeping in view the situation, the government is bringing in rental power generation units and maximizing generation from Independent Power Producers (IPPs) to augment the existing supply. A debt of Rs400b had created problems for the power generation sector out of which Rs260b are receivables of the eight power companies while Rs140b has to be paid to the oil companies. The power generation companies had no money to pay to the oil cos due to which the situation went from bad to worse.

He said a debt of Rs400b had created problems for the power generation sector out of which Rs260b are receivables of the eight power companies while Rs140b has to be paid to the oil companies. The power generation companies had no money to pay to the oil cos due to which the situation went from bad to worse, he added.

DAILY TIMES reports about help from Germany.  The article states how Germany is going to help Pakistan recover from the threats of worse economic and energy crisis. He also added that efforts are to be made to increase the two way trade. Speaking on the occasion many economist and strategists commented that Pakistan being an agricultural state should emphasis on the imports of fruits, vegetables and other agriculture based commodities to help increase the import revenue.The LCCI president said that the foreign investment in Pakistan by Germany, which was $11.2 million in 2001-02, had increased to $2 billion in the year 2007, showing a little improvement and needs to be increased.

There are not many sites dedicated to energy … here’s one but there is not much information here.