Thursday, April 24 2025

Seven top NTDC officials removed for slackness
The board of directors of the Nati­o­nal Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) removed seven top officials on Wednesday due to shortcomings, project delays, and poor performance. The decision was taken on the directive of Power Minister Sardar Awais Leghari, who had recently expressed concern over project delays and the performance of these officials, according to a statement issued by the power division instead of NTDC. Those removed from their positions included Deputy Managing Director Planning Qaiser Khan, Chief Financial Officer Waseem Saadar Sheikh, two general managers and three chief engineers and were made officers on special duty (OSD) – a term used for suspension of official duties till completion of enquiry. One of the sacked general managers included Nisar Akhtar.
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Friday, April 18 2025

K-Electric comes under fire on Rs76bn write-offs
Industrial and political representatives from Karachi have called for forensic audit of almost Rs76 billion write-off claims made by K-Electric unrecoverable from consumers since 2017 and announced that its recovery through tariff from consumers would be resisted through all constitutional means. At a public hearing organised by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Thursday, a case officer reported that KE had submitted Rs68bn writeoff claims in December on account of recovery loss under multi-year tariff (MYT) period of 2017-23, but later increased it to Rs122.8bn on Jan 16. Another Rs8.13bn was claimed on March 18, and some of these claims were part of the original Rs68bn approved by the KE’s board of directors and its auditors A. F. Ferguson.
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Thursday, April 17 2025

KE urges Nepra not to pass on full benefit of fall in fuel cost to consumers
K-Electric asked the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Wednesday not to pass on the full benefit of Rs6.62 per unit decrease in fuel cost in February to consumers and instead settle it against its past claims. The Nepra was holding a public hearing on monthly fuel cost adjustments (FCA) for electricity consumed in February, which showed the consumer had been overcharged to the extent of Rs6.62 per unit involving an amount of Rs6.662 billion. Under automatic monthly FCA, the KE consumers qualify for a Rs6.62 per unit refund in the coming month. The KE team, which comprised its chief executive officer Moonis Alvi, chief financial officer Amir Ghaziani and finance director Ayaz Jafar, reported that Rs13.9bn on account of partial load, degradation of power plants for the period July 2023-February 2025 had been pending for independent verification.
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Monday, April 14 2025

Nepra under fire over rigid appeal policy
The Nati­onal Electric Power Regu­latory Authority (Nepra) has come under criticism from within and outside for charging hefty fees to consumers for appeals and reviews of regulatory decisions. This emerged after a strong dissenting note from Nepra Member (Tariff) representing Baloc­histan Mathar Niaz Rana for disallowing on technical grounds a review application from Karachi-based industrial consumers Muhammad Arif Bilwani against weaknesses in the matter of K-Electric’s power generation tariff. The regulatory order issued on April 10 noted that Mr Bilwani was not a party in the matter of KE’s power generation tariff and did not pay about Rs1 million fee but paid only Rs1,000 as a common consumer and hence did not qualify to be entertained by the regulator. However, Mr Rana, in his dissenting note, reminded the regulator that Nepra had allowed similar requests and almost on similar grounds in the past, including to the federal government.
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Monday, April 07 2025

Power supply to Makran from Iran resumes
The power supply to all three districts of Makran, including Gwadar, Turbat and Panjgur, was restored on Sunday after 24 hours of blackout. The power breakdown plunged the entire division into complete darkness after power supply from Iran via two 132kV transmission lines was suspended. Pakistan imports electricity from Iran under long-term contracts to meet electricity demand in the coastal region, which is not connected to the national grid because of scattered population and the resultant commercial viability challenges. According to a spokesperson for the Quetta Electric Supply Company (Qesco), the affected grid stations included 132kV Mand, Tump, Turbat, Hoshab, Panjgur, Jiwani, Gwadar Door, Gwadar Deep Sea Port, New Gwadar International Airport, Pasni, and Ormara.
Related news categories: business economic-indicators power-gen-dist