Islamabad:
Pakistan loses RS250 billion annually due to energy robbery in the country, not RS500 billion as they claim, the Minister of Energy Awais Leghari said on Tuesday to the Permanent National Energy Committee of the Assembly.
The Committee, chaired by Muhammad Idrees, was informed that K-Electric could now attract 600 megawatts (MW) of electricity from the national network, which raises its total energy availability to 2,000mw.
The Minister’s statement occurred during a suggestion of the member of the Rana Sikandar Hayat committee, who urged the issuance of new connections to housing societies to boost consumption. “If demand notices are issued, we will install the connections,” said the minister.
“Power theft is not RS500 billion as stated: they are RS250 billion annually,” Leghari added. Hayat pointed out that the remaining amount was due to unpaid invoices.
Malik Anwar Taj raised public concerns regarding excessive billing when the use crossed the threshold of 200 units. He demanded that the committee include this issue on the agenda. “Why is Bill Spike so drastically for a single additional unit?” asked.
While informing the committee, officials said any failure in the Jamshoro network led to a complete blackout throughout the Hyderab Electric Supply Company (Hesco) network. They explained that the failure in the Jamshoro network interrupted the supply of electricity to 13 cities. The minister replied that Jamshoro Grid only disconnected during the national blackouts. “I do not remember any fault isolated incident within Jamshoro’s grid,” he explained.
However, Hesco’s officials argued that past incidents had resulted in Jamshoro failures that led to generalized interruptions. They requested the establishment of an alternative grid station of 220 kV for Hesco, which must be connected through Matiari or Nawabshah.
The member of the Syed Waseem Hussain committee said that the fault in Jamshoro Grid also affected Karachi. Leghari dismissed this statement, stating that Jamshoro’s grid “has no connection with K-Electric” and his system was separated; Therefore, “it does not affect Karachi.”
The minister shared updates on the integration of K-Electric with the National Network. K-Electric officials informed the committee that the Public Services Company had established four interconnection points with the National Network, with a combined capacity of more than 2,000MW.
They said that two main grid stations, the 500 kV KKI grid and the 220 kV Dhabeji grid, had been successfully energized, and added that under a provisional provision, the KKI network was extracting up to 1,600mw from the National Transmission Company and Devices (NTDC) network.
The officials also informed the committee that a new connection point between K2/K3 and PQEPCL, linked through a 500 kV NTDC transmission line was being built. This line is expected to be completed at the end of July 2025 “. Once it is completely built and integrated with the KKI network, it is projected that the K-Electric reduction capacity of the national network will reach approximately 2,100 MW,” said an official. A K-Electric official clarified that this improved capacity depended on regulatory approvals and the completion of technical viabilities.
