Energy revenue increased up to Rs121 billion by govt, Omar Ayub tells Senate

ISLAMABAD: Energy Minister Omar Ayub Khan said on Monday that the present government has increased energy revenue up to Rs121 billion and set a target of generating 100,000 megawatts electricity by 2047, ARY News reported.

Energy Minister Omar Ayub, while giving a policy statement in the Senate session regarding circulatory debts, strongly rejected the allegations of any conflict of interests between the federal government and the energy ministry.

The minister said that electricity tariff had not been hiked before the organisation of election due to political reasons, whereas, the past government had not stopped electricity theft besides signing expensive agreements for power generation.

He detailed that the government could transmit 25,000 megawatts of electricity now as compared to the previous capacity of power transmission up to 18,000.

Ayub criticised that Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) had signed wrong power agreements by increasing dependency on Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) instead of focusing on alternative options like solar and wind energy. The present government is primarily focusing on constructing dams and alternative sources of electricity.

He said that the power generation sector advanced to imported electricity up to 75 per cent due to controversial agreements of PML-N and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). The circulatory debts had peaked up to Rs478 billion during PML-N’s era while the previous government had released Rs39 billion circulatory debt on a monthly basis.  The circulatory debt of gas sector had reached up to Rs380 billion due to the worst policies of PML-N, he added.

The present government has reduced the circulatory debt to Rs12 billion before witnessing an economic crisis due to coronavirus pandemic.

Omar Ayub said that the alternative and renewable energy plan will be passed by the Council of Common Interests (CCI) on August 6 which will mainly benefit Sindh and Balochistan provinces. Under the new policy, the power generation through alternative sources will be increased up to 8,000 megawatts by 2025.

He recalled that the present government showed seriousness to proceed the construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam and it has set a target of power generation up to 100,000 megawatts by 2047. The electricity rate will be downgraded to Rs5 per unit after generating power through alternative sources.