Rana Tassaddiq Hussain
ISLAMABAAD: The Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE) vide its decision on Oct.10,2020 has decided to retire the GECNCOs plants in two phases: 1796 MW immediately and 2475 MW till September 2022. The decision was made on the misleading facts and malicious convincing of Tabish Gohar, then SAPM on Energy, Power and Petroleum. This wicked game was played to create monopoly of IPPs over power sector.
Govt of Pakistan owns four GENCOs i.e. GENCO-I Jamshoro & Kotri Power Plants, GENCO-II Guddu Power Plant, GENCO- III Muzaffargarh,Faisalabad ,Multan Power Plants and GENCO IV Lakhra Local Coal (indigenous Lignite) Fired Power Plant.
The total generation capacity of all four GENCOs is around 5000 Mega Watt. These plants are located at strategically suitable locations and near load centers in such a way that to meet the emergent situations, the power can be controlled effectively by the govt.
While PTI government, through this decision intended to a complete devastation of these Billion Dollar assets of the country, which are operating and competing with the country power market at best efficiency and least cost generation. The said decision was to favor the IPPs to take the whole control of the power generation industry and unleash the monopoly of generation cost to slaughter the poor people of Pakistan.
Tabish Gohar had a committment with former PM (Imran Khan) to eliminate the public sector power generation industry, by privatization or forceful closure of benefiting power plants of GENCOs.
One can imagine the degree of irony that PTI govt hadn’t bother to consider were; the plants approved for closure were at attractive position in the Merit List published by National Transmission & Dispatch Company (NTDC) dated 21.05.2021.
In that phase around 1700 employees of the GENCOs were transferred to DESCOs at lower positions than their original ones. It was a massive illmanaged teamwork reflection of the PTI government to waste / defunct the country’s technical trained force.
While closed plants would have turned machinery corrosive, eroded, faulty turning them into scrap. Over Billion Dollar machinery would have been defuncted and beyond put into operation in any urgent need of power to country. Same plants with similar capacity and efficiency of IPPs, i.e. KAPCO & HUBCO power plants were allowed to operate within power generation market while the GENCOs plants,being sole public owned were proned to face the obsoletion.
The IPP Mafia behind PTI government had satanic dream to purchase these power plants’ assets and control as Property of Orphans. The decision of PTI govt lead towards the monopoly of IPPs and to get control on power industry, generation price and emergency operation of the electric power generation.
