The
electricity consumers continue to face hardship in terms of persistent
load-shedding, while having to contend with hefty electricity bills
every month. The impact of electricity cost and load-shedding is
considerable from an economic and social standpoint. On the one hand,
having to devise personal solutions to meet electricity needs by
consumers is not only costly, but stressful and time consuming. On the
other hand from a business perspective, it means higher input costs
which make it more difficult to be competitive in the international
markets and more difficult to manage continuous and uninterrupted
production runs. All this despite capacity being available to meet the
demand, and oil prices being at record low levels.
Tall
claims continue to be made to resolve the crisis by 2018, just before
the next elections, but we see the same unresolved issues of ballooning
circular debt and no let up in load-shedding. Then there are issues of
having a distribution and transmission system that may not be able to
cope with the additional load effectively once it enters the system. In
his book, Pakistan’s Interminable Energy Crisis: is there a way out? published
by the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars (Wilson
Center), Michael Kugelman reviews the energy crisis in Pakistan. He aims
to study the energy situation in Pakistan and suggest possible options –
which are all long-term with no quick fixes.
Read Full Article: Electricity: Charge and Surcharge
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