The attempt to save baseline electricity consumers from paying the full tariff for their electricity, to be paid for by cutting the development budget, may well run into trouble with the International Monetary Fund, for while the books may well be balanced, the aim of reducing the subsidy given to these consumers will be defeated by the government actually increasing the subsidy. The government also probably earned another black mark from the IMF by the Prime Minister announcing that 28,000 tubewells in Balochistan would convert to solar power in three months, as part of a programme to convert all 100,000 tubewells in the country, thus ending the need to import $3.5 billion worth of diesel per year. It might be pointed out that one of the highest rates of electricity theft takes place in the Quetta Electricity Supply Corporation, which provides power to the whole of Balochistan, most of it in tubewell connections. Recovery is virtually impossible, as is cutting the connection. However, shifting to solar energy would mean that most defaulting tubewells could go off-grid, as they will not require tubewells to run at night. In that case, the distribution companies’ only lever, so effective against domestic consumers, of needing a supplier at night, when there is no solar power, will be ineffective. The IMF favours consumers staying in the WAPDA system, so that the DISCOs can keep paying the IPPs their capacity payments, whereby they charge for the capacity, irrespective of whether they use it to actually make electricity. Solar power does not require expensive imported fuel, is non-polluting and renewable. It is thus detested by both the petroleum and electrical industries. Because of the capacity charges, the IMF wants Pakistan to keep consumers paying WAPDA so that it can pay those capacity charges.
The real problem will start for WAPDA when improvements in battery storage technology allow consumers to go off the grid, and leave WAPDA saddled with capacity payments for power no one wants. However, instead of reinforcing outdated technology, the government needs to take sensible decisions, such as considering a solar solution for those baseline consumers it wants to protect. There is no need for it to be the accomplice of Big Oil and Big Power, the way the IMF is. It must be on the right side of change for once.
