Power minister says DISCO losses down to Rs325bn from Rs591bn
Awais Leghari told the Senate circular debt had fallen to about Rs1.6 trillion, and that an income-based subsidy system will take one to one-and-a-half months to prepare.
Power Minister Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari told the Senate on Tuesday that the annual losses of the power distribution companies had fallen to Rs325 billion from Rs591 billion in 2024, and that circular debt had dropped from Rs2.4 trillion to about Rs1.6 trillion over the past two and a half years.
The minister was replying to a calling attention notice moved by Abid Sher Ali. According to the Daily Times report of his remarks, he said the government had refinanced Rs1.2 trillion of circular debt, and that under the plan the Rs3.23 per unit debt-servicing surcharge would be eliminated within four years and the remaining circular debt paid off.
Leghari put the distribution companies' losses at Rs360 billion last year and Rs325 billion this year, giving those figures alongside the comparison with the Rs591 billion for 2024. He said the Power Division's budget support had come down from Rs1,180 billion in 2024 to around Rs750 billion, and that the reduction in losses had lowered the government's budget burden by about Rs200 billion.
On tariffs and subsidies, the minister said consumers using up to 200 units pay about Rs13 per unit against an actual cost of Rs35, a subsidy of roughly 60 to 65 per cent. The number of such consumers had risen from 10 million to 22.5 million in two years, he said. He told the Senate the government was working on a system to target subsidies according to income, potentially extending the eligibility limit to 250 units and linking relief to monthly consumption. The work would take about one to one-and-a-half months, he said.
The figures cover the two measures the government uses to describe the health of the power sector: the losses booked by the state-owned companies that bill households and businesses, and the circular debt, the backlog of unpaid dues that accumulates along the supply chain and is ultimately met from the budget. The minister did not give a breakdown by company in the remarks reported by APP and the Daily Times.
APP reported the headline numbers on losses and circular debt from the same Senate sitting.
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