ahlam1399
09-22-2016, 05:02 AM
ISLAMABAD: The Balochistan province on Wednesday complained to the federal government that the Sindh province was stealing the water share of the province that was leading to a severe shortage of water in the less-developed federating unit.
The complaint came from the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) member from Balochistan Muhammad Naseem Bazai in the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power meeting, saying that the province was already getting less water what it requires but Sindh was stealing about six to seven thousand cusecs from what the authority allocates to it. The committee met here with MNA Muhammad Arshad Khan Leghari in chair here on Wednesday.
Bazai said that since 1991 to 2014, Balochistan got almost 50 percent less water than its demand that resulted in losses of around Rs93 billion to the province.Whereas, MNA Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur told the committee that due to water shortage, around five million acres of Sindh province had turned barren which inflicted losses of tens of trillions of rupees on the province.
Irsa Chairman Rao Irshad Ali Khan, while briefing the committee, jettisoned the impression that the provinces, especially Sindh, was given less water share. He said that there is ** discrimination in water share distribution among the provinces and if we have ample water supply in our system, we also do increase the water share of the provinces. This year Sindh has been given 15 percent higher share. All the provinces have been given higher than its share due to availability of excess water in the country.
He further said that since 1992 to 2016, on an average Sindh got six percent less water of its share, Punjab nine percent less and KP has received more than its share whereas Balochistan has got only 60 percent of its share.
Interestingly, during the meeting officials of Power Distribution Companies (Discos) operating in Sindh province and the elected public representatives of the province also complained against each other for lack of cooperation in reducing power theft and other irregularities in the power distribution system in the province.
The committee adopted the report prepared by its sub-committee on “The performance of Disco’s of Sindh” and expressed its concern over the **n-cooperative attitude of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesc) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco).
The NA body also directed the Ministry of Water and Power to address the issues identified by the sub-committee and submit its compliance report within 15 days.
The committee also constituted a**ther sub-committee on the issues pertaining to Hesco and Sepco, which is headed by Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur, while its members are Ghulam Mustafa Shah, Syed Kazim Ali Shah and Syed Muhammad Waseem.
The Sepco Chief Executive ******r (CEO), Mujahid Islam, said that there were up to 400 kunda connections at each transformer in his jurisdiction while in certain areas, only 10-15 people per transformer paid the bill.
“If the transformer gets damaged or burned off in any such area, then the transformers are **t replaced,” Sepco CEO Mujahid Islam said and added, “Just before Eid one elected representative assured us that payments would be made if we replaced the damaged transformer but payment is yet to be made.” He said that 17,000 kunda connections have been identified and offered to get meters installed but only 400 of them have responded to the offer.
“The real issue is that our employees are involved in electricity thefts with these Kunda consumers — we are in a fix if action is taken against employees, then there are political pressures in support of employees, if employees are **t checked than kunda system will remain uncontrolled,” he added.
However, he said that cases had been filed against two SDOs and their cases had been referred to NAB, whereas four XENs who were facilitating electricity theft have been suspended.
Giving the statistics of electricity consumers in Sepco, he said that there were 700,000 consumers which have been brought down to 550,000 but a huge number — 375,000 — is defaulter.
The subject of overbilling was also discussed in the meeting, and the committee directed the ministry to eliminate the factor of overbilling as the worst sufferers in this regard were the ordinary domestic consumers.
Water and Power Additional Secretary Umar Rasool told the committee that the issue of overbilling would be resolved by the start of 2017.“We are set to implement mobile meter reading system across the country, but the meter readers were the main hurdle in implementing this digital reading process,” Umar Rasool said and added, “Many meter readers have been laid off from different Discos who were organising resistance to this digital reading process.”
He told the committee that digital meter reading process has been implemented at 88 percent consumers in Lesco (Lahore), 90 percent consumers in Fesco (Faisalabad), 90 percent consumers in Mepso (Multan) and 90 percent in Iesco (Islamabad).“It will help reduce overbilling and similar complaints by 70-80 percent after the whole country converted to digital meter reading,” Umar Rasool said.
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The complaint came from the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) member from Balochistan Muhammad Naseem Bazai in the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power meeting, saying that the province was already getting less water what it requires but Sindh was stealing about six to seven thousand cusecs from what the authority allocates to it. The committee met here with MNA Muhammad Arshad Khan Leghari in chair here on Wednesday.
Bazai said that since 1991 to 2014, Balochistan got almost 50 percent less water than its demand that resulted in losses of around Rs93 billion to the province.Whereas, MNA Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur told the committee that due to water shortage, around five million acres of Sindh province had turned barren which inflicted losses of tens of trillions of rupees on the province.
Irsa Chairman Rao Irshad Ali Khan, while briefing the committee, jettisoned the impression that the provinces, especially Sindh, was given less water share. He said that there is ** discrimination in water share distribution among the provinces and if we have ample water supply in our system, we also do increase the water share of the provinces. This year Sindh has been given 15 percent higher share. All the provinces have been given higher than its share due to availability of excess water in the country.
He further said that since 1992 to 2016, on an average Sindh got six percent less water of its share, Punjab nine percent less and KP has received more than its share whereas Balochistan has got only 60 percent of its share.
Interestingly, during the meeting officials of Power Distribution Companies (Discos) operating in Sindh province and the elected public representatives of the province also complained against each other for lack of cooperation in reducing power theft and other irregularities in the power distribution system in the province.
The committee adopted the report prepared by its sub-committee on “The performance of Disco’s of Sindh” and expressed its concern over the **n-cooperative attitude of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesc) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco).
The NA body also directed the Ministry of Water and Power to address the issues identified by the sub-committee and submit its compliance report within 15 days.
The committee also constituted a**ther sub-committee on the issues pertaining to Hesco and Sepco, which is headed by Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur, while its members are Ghulam Mustafa Shah, Syed Kazim Ali Shah and Syed Muhammad Waseem.
The Sepco Chief Executive ******r (CEO), Mujahid Islam, said that there were up to 400 kunda connections at each transformer in his jurisdiction while in certain areas, only 10-15 people per transformer paid the bill.
“If the transformer gets damaged or burned off in any such area, then the transformers are **t replaced,” Sepco CEO Mujahid Islam said and added, “Just before Eid one elected representative assured us that payments would be made if we replaced the damaged transformer but payment is yet to be made.” He said that 17,000 kunda connections have been identified and offered to get meters installed but only 400 of them have responded to the offer.
“The real issue is that our employees are involved in electricity thefts with these Kunda consumers — we are in a fix if action is taken against employees, then there are political pressures in support of employees, if employees are **t checked than kunda system will remain uncontrolled,” he added.
However, he said that cases had been filed against two SDOs and their cases had been referred to NAB, whereas four XENs who were facilitating electricity theft have been suspended.
Giving the statistics of electricity consumers in Sepco, he said that there were 700,000 consumers which have been brought down to 550,000 but a huge number — 375,000 — is defaulter.
The subject of overbilling was also discussed in the meeting, and the committee directed the ministry to eliminate the factor of overbilling as the worst sufferers in this regard were the ordinary domestic consumers.
Water and Power Additional Secretary Umar Rasool told the committee that the issue of overbilling would be resolved by the start of 2017.“We are set to implement mobile meter reading system across the country, but the meter readers were the main hurdle in implementing this digital reading process,” Umar Rasool said and added, “Many meter readers have been laid off from different Discos who were organising resistance to this digital reading process.”
He told the committee that digital meter reading process has been implemented at 88 percent consumers in Lesco (Lahore), 90 percent consumers in Fesco (Faisalabad), 90 percent consumers in Mepso (Multan) and 90 percent in Iesco (Islamabad).“It will help reduce overbilling and similar complaints by 70-80 percent after the whole country converted to digital meter reading,” Umar Rasool said.
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