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Budget unsatisfactory’
By Umer Bhatti
LAHORE
FORMER High Officials of Water and Power Development Authority WAPDA
have declared the budget 2009-10 unsatisfactory for the development
and rehabilitation of energy sector in the country.
Former Member Finance WAPDA Javed Nizam and former Chairman WAPDA
General Zulfiqar categorically lashed out at the budget which was
released by the government on the evening of Saturday.
Whereas former Member Power WAPDA Syed Tanzeem Hussain Naqvi said
the budget was a bit satisfactory provided all the promises and
policies made would be implemented to the optimum level.
Talking to The News, Javed Nizam said on the whole there was nothing
substantial in the budget and the general public problems related to
loadshedding and costly electricity would be going to exist in the
coming fiscal year.
He said tariff increase was a compulsion for the government because
it was the condition of the IMF and the government could not get
away with that. But he said this tariff increase should have linked
with the operational functioning of the WAPDA, PEPCO and all of its
distribution companies DISCOs.
Explaining his viewpoint, he said the line losses or the system
losses should have reduced further and only efficient companies,
which reduced their line losses, should be allowed to increase the
tariff to a reasonable level to cover their cost of service. He
further said the total circular debt of the WAPDA and PEPCO was
5-600 billions and the government only allocated 92 billion rupees
for PEPCO and that too with the help of banks. He said by doing
this, the government would increase its debt because banks would
also demand their markup and the government would be in more trouble
next year.
Former Chairman General Zulfiqar said the rental power was too
costly and not at all feasible in the current economic crisis the
country was facing.
He said the Thar Coal should have been tapped at any cost and
unfortunately there was not a single provision about that in the
declared budget.
On top of all, he said the government had only allocated 4 billion
rupees for Diamer Basha Dam, which was too little an amount to
consider.
Moreover, the solar power projects which were in pipeline to be
started were not sufficient. He said the total capacity was much
more than that.
Finally, he said the Chichoo Ki Malian and Nandi Poor projects were
also in the last budget but nothing substantial had been done on
this.
The News: Sunday, June 14, 2009
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