ISLAMABAD, Jun 12 (APP): Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday said that the government has allocated a huge sum of Rs 253 billion in the budget for development of energy sector.
In a budget speech at the National Assembly, the minister said, “Out of total, an amount of Rs 65 billion has been proposed for the installation of an asset performance management system on distribution transformers and Rs 5 billion for electricity distribution efficiency.”
“A sum of Rs 21 billion has also been proposed for 1200 MW Jamshoro and Rs 11 billion for improvement in the system of the National Transmission and Dispatched Company (NTDC).”
He said, “Some reforms have also been devised to bring improvement to the energy sector.”
These reforms included improvements in the efficiency of transmission and distribution to reduce losses and the restructuring of NTDC, which had already been approved by the prime minister.
Similarly, professionals from the private sector were also being included in the boards of public sector power companies, besides expediting the privatization the privatization process for nine distribution companies (DISCOs) and generation companies (GENCOs).
The minister said that switching to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydroelectric instead of expensive imported fuel-based power plants was the government’s top priority.
He said the anti-power pilferage drive saved Rs 50 billion.
He expressed the hope that the government had taken steps to improve the power sector, which would help stop the increase in circular debt stock.
