LAHORE, Feb 12: The Water and Power Develop-ment Authority has repla-ced Brig Muhammad Ali, the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company chief executive, with Abdur Rashid Khan, a career engineer, Dawn learnt on Tuesday.

The decision, was conveyed to those concerned through the Authority’s letter number GM(A)/D(CM)C/09997(27)/3639-3818, dated Feb 7. Brig Ali is the second serving army officer being replaced with a career engineer. Earlier Engr Ijaz Ali Khan was made incharge of the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company.

Sources said the two replacements represented steps towards implementation of a Wapda decision in October last to replace the serving brigadiers heading eight distribution companies with career engineers.

The decision was said to have been a result, in part, of continuous prodding by the World Bank to prepare the companies for the post-army era. The Bank had been pressing the Wapda to strengthen the companies on engineering side so that they should have a better control over line losses and technical problems. The brigadiers, it maintained, might be great managers but lacked the technical knowhow which was a requirement for the job. Line losses, it pointed out, had remained high during the last four years. The companies’ single-minded focus on revenue recovery had exposed it to long term problems through neglect of technical aspects.

“There were three or four major breakdowns during last three years,” a Ministry of Water and Power officer said. While Wapda’s income jumped from Rs93.3 billion to Rs174.4 billion, and its power generation from 53.259 billion units to 58.418 billion units, the operation and maintenance budget went down from Rs13.9 billion in 1998-99 to Rs13.5 billion in 1999-2000 and Rs13.8 billion in 2000-01. This, he said, indicated revenue generation at the risk of system’s health.

A Wapda official said introduction of army in the Authority had not been a total success. He said the army had been introduced primarily to end corruption. Lt-Gen Zulfiqar Ali Khan, the Wapda chairman, he said, was on record admitting failure on this count. Besides increase in revenue, the success story had revolved around controlling the line losses, which were said to have come down from 42 percent to 23.6 percent. The claim, however, has been disputed. Wapda’s own record, it was pointed out, showed that the losses had never gone beyond 27 per cent. Now, he said, the management was reverting to the old system, making career engineers incharge of the operations. A Ministry of Water and Power officer said Wapda’s manpower crisis was another issue. Over the last three years, he said, there had been a heavy manpower haemorrhage. To quote one example, out of the 44 officers hired by the Pakistan Electric Power Company and other corporatized entities, 22 had either resigned or their contracts had expired. This, he said, had resulted in a severe manpower crisis at Wapda, which has now asked all engineers on deputation to return to the Authority by November 2002.

A Wapda employee said around 90 per cent of the army personnel had already been relieved from the Wapda. The rest, he said, were on their way. The Wapda chairman, he said, had recently linked army’s exit to border situation. Brig Ali’s replacement, however, belied the linkage. Had the replacement been due to border situation, the brigadier might have been sent back to the corps headquarters. But he had been posted as general manager incharge of training.