A delegation of the Pakistan Business Council (PBC), led by Chief Executive Officer Javed Kureishi, on Friday met with Federal Minister for Energy Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari.
The meeting focused on exploring strategic avenues to stimulate electricity demand, optimize existing generation capacity, reduce power sector costs, and promote electricity consumption to drive national economic activities, said a press release.
During the meeting, Dr. Naveed Arshad, on behalf of the Pakistan Business Council, delivered a presentation on a strategic framework. The presentation addressed the interconnected challenges of demand and cost within the power sector, highlighting potential growth areas and proposing actionable measures for the optimal utilization of existing generation capacity.
The framework also evaluated projections indicating a potential annual demand growth of approximately 44 to 45 Terawatt-hours (TWh) over the next five to seven years. The presentation detailed opportunities to foster electricity consumption across key sectors, including electric buses and vehicles, gas-to-grid transition, agriculture, data centers, railways, and industrial operations. It was highlighted that generating incremental demand would allow fixed capacity costs to be distributed over a larger volume of consumed units, thereby helping to stabilize per-unit tariffs for end-consumers.
Federal Minister Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari stated that boosting electricity demand, ensuring efficient utilization of available generation capacity, and lowering power sector costs remain central to the government’s reform agenda.
He emphasized that the government was actively implementing multiple measures to reduce system expenses and alleviate unnecessary financial burdens on power consumers.
The minister informed that approximately 21 million consumers were currently benefiting from 40 to 50 percent power subsidies, and the government was executing structural reforms to rationalize the cross-subsidy burden. He added that lowering system expenses and establishing a more sustainable, targeted subsidy mechanism were essential to protect consumers from unmerited financial strain.
The minister reaffirmed that the government would not encourage or support projects that violate the principle of least-cost generation. He made it clear that if any project deviated from the least-cost framework, the resulting financial burden would not be passed on to electricity consumers, and the respective project would have to absorb those additional costs itself.
Highlighting recent structural gains, the minister shared that reducing losses across distribution companies (DISCOs) over the past two years has yielded savings of pkr 265 billion. Operational and administrative measures were continuously being taken to further enhance DISCO performance, noting that the overarching objective of energy sector reforms was to build a highly efficient, cost-effective, and consumer-centric power system.
To incentivize higher consumption in the industrial sector, the Minister explained that under the Time-of-Use (TOU) tariff mechanism, industrial units will receive discounted per-unit rates for electricity consumed beyond their usual usage. This measure would boost industrial output while maximizing the operational utilization of power generation capacity.
Addressing the shift toward domestic energy resources, Leghari announced that the feasibility studies for converting imported coal-based power plants to local coal have been completed. He noted that transitioning to local coal would significantly reduce reliance on foreign coal imports, conserve foreign exchange, and lower overall power generation expenses.
Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari underscored the government’s resolve to expand electricity access across the country, with ongoing measures targeted at achieving 100 percent electrification in the near future. He stated that sustainable growth in power demand was achievable only when all regions and socio-economic segments had effective access to electricity linked directly to productive economic activities.
Welcoming the constructive proposals submitted by the Pakistan Business Council, the minister concluded that such consultations reinforce the ongoing reform process, assuring that the government will continue executing practical measures that balance demand, cost, efficiency and consumer interests.
