Category: Highlights

Starting with the 1994 private power policy, Pakistan has seen a streak of energy policies, introduced at regular intervals by successive governments in their bid to fuel the growing economy and serve the demands of the burgeoning population. Most of these policies, however, failed to deliver their intended outcomes during implementation. Often, these policies have also led to serious unintended consequences such as excess capacity, suppressed demand, piling up of circular debt, relocating of local businesses to other countries, and raising fuel and electricity prices beyond the reach of common…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has reaffirmed its support for energy sector reforms in Pakistan. Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Petroleum Nadeem Babar on Tuesday held a virtual meeting with the ADB team in Manila together with ADB Country Director Xiaohong Yang and the energy team, said a statement issued by the Petroleum Division. The meeting was aimed to discuss the progress on the reform programme in the petroleum sector of Pakistan. The forum was informed that energy sector reforms were part of the government’s policy to improve energy…

Read More

Leading infectious diseases’ experts and vaccinologists have warned that herd immunity against the coronavirus cannot be achieved globally without vaccinating children, arguing that vaccinating the adults may prevent mortality, but the transmissibility of the virus would continue in the unvaccinated populations, especially children. They said studies to vaccinate children are underway although these studies started very late. They made it clear that the transmission of the virus will not stop even by vaccinating 70 per cent of the adult populations globally. “We may not be able to achieve herd immunity…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: In a goodwill gesture, the top management of K-Electric has withdrawn its main conditions of Principle of Reciprocity and arbitration through the London Court from its draft terms of reference (ToRs) to resolve once for all the decade old disputes over receivables and payables between the KE and the government entities. The shareholders of K-Electric from Kuwait, Dubai and Saudi Arabia have also given the nod to the top management to remove the clause of Principle of Reciprocity and agree to the local arbitration mainly on the demand of…

Read More

ISLAMABAD: The Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCOE) that met here on Thursday noted that the projected circular debt accumulation is on the decline as the circular debt flow in FY 2020-21 is now projected to be around Rs 440 billion compared to Rs 538 billion in the last fiscal year, primarily due to better DISCOs performance, lower unbudgeted subsidies and the impact of the recently-announced Rs 1.95 tariff increase, a senior official told The News. “With Federal Minister for Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar in the chair, the CCOE…

Read More