Electricity workers observe Safety Day

The Safety Day was observed all over the country on Thursday to highlight the issues of Electricity/Wapda workers. The Safety Day was observed under the aegis of All-Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union CBA for the safety of field staff working on electricity lines, grid stations and power houses. Recently, two linemen died of electrocution on Faisalabad Road sub division and Phool Nagar sub division while two members of the line staff were burnt in Sukkur and Larkana while working on 11KV line while some of the employees had become…

Read More

Power base tariff to be further raised, govt told

ISLAMABAD: The federal government has assured the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it will further increase power base tariff by Rs 1.39 per unit from June 1, 2021 in addition to quarterly and monthly adjustments while acknowledging that adjustments of energy tariffs brought them closer to cost recovery. This was disclosed in the second to fifth staff reviews under the extended fund facility arrangement and request for re-phasing of access uploaded on the IMF website Thursday. To strike a balance between achieving cost recovery and softening the social and economic…

Read More

Punjab govt to buy electricity from private sector

The Punjab government has decided to buy electricity from the private sector.According to the official documents, the provincial government will purchase electricity, produced from solar power, from the private firms which are currently generating 1,300 megawatts of electricity. A grid company would be set up for the distribution and transmission of the electricity after its purchase. Punjab Grid Company would purchase electricity, and it would be responsible for transmitting it to the consumers and billing. Documents tell that due to the power generated from solar energy, not only the burden…

Read More

Pandemic economy

LAHORE: The developed economies are exhausting their resources to minimise the impact of Covid-19 on their citizens, but they have little cash for poor nations who have to cope with Covid-19 impact on their own. At the same time the global commodity rates are on the rise. Steel and other metals prices are increasing. Global food prices registered rise for the tenth straight month. All this is happening at a time when our food import bill has reached historic high. Three years back we had a competent -though corrupt- bureaucracy.…

Read More

IMF: Misplaced expectations?

Prime Minister Imran Khan while remarking on (the United Nations Development Programme’s) UNDP’s Pakistan National Human Development Report stated it is time for a new International Monetary Fund (IMF) package given the economic disruptions ahead due to a “very scary” third wave of Covid-19. These sentiments, be they coincidental or by design, mirror the sentiments expressed in a report titled ‘Pakistan Development Update’ released by the World Bank the same day wherein it was stated that “Pakistan’s economic growth is expected to recover slowly, given heightened uncertainty surrounding the Covid-19…

Read More