(January 19, 2022)
Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday said more than seven lakh electricity connections are being kept pending across the country causing loss of billions of rupees to the government.
On the one hand, billions of rupees are being paid to IPPs in foreign currency without using their production which is beyond comprehension.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that non-provision of electricity has affected millions of consumers in the domestic, industrial, commercial and agricultural sectors.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the bureaucratic lethargy has been affecting the economy for years which should be noticed.
He said that many industries, tube wells, thousands of plazas, and houses are not usable even though they are ready and that providing electricity connections would have a positive impact on the agricultural, industrial and commercial sectors.
This will provide employment to the people and the overall business activities would flourish generating handsome revenue.
Mian Zahid Hussain furthered that applications for hundreds of thousands of connections have been pending all over the country for many years due to which people are now hesitant to make business plans.
If applications for new power connections are approved, it will reduce losses in the power sector, slow down the pace of debt accumulation and there will be no need to frequently revise power tariffs which are hurting the economy.
Bureaucracy in the power distribution companies are punishing people by their inefficiency and indecision as they are not ready to buy new meters from suppliers who have increased prices under the garb of pandemic.
Power meter companies have formed a cartel to maximize profits but the Competition Commission is yet to take any concrete action.
All these factors are costing the government billions of rupees while millions of construction projects, industries, and people are being affected, he said.
