KARACHI, April 7: The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry has expressed concern over a hurriedly called energy conference in Lahore on Monday.

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, Mian Abrar Ahmad, President, Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, maintained that business community of Sindh has not been taken into confidence nor invited to participate in the prior and preparatory deliberations of the conference.

He expressed concern over the conflicting agenda of the conference which, he said, may reopen certain issues settled under the Constitution.

The KCCI proposed that the government should undertake urgent exploitation of indigenous resources which can quickly relieve pressure on expensive import of oil and the fast depleting gas reserves.

The KCCI said that the government should concentrate on resolving major bottlenecks and move ahead and take strategic decisions required to bring more energy on the grid and by taking the required reforms and governance actions for containing losses, and leakages.

Drawing PM’s attention to some fundamental facts, the KCCI chief said that the existing electricity shortages to a large extent have accentuated because of shortage of gas, as such it is important to explore how these shortages have happened.

“The country is presently producing approximately 4000mmcfd of gas from all gas fields compared to 3800mmcfd in 2008. Hence there has been a definite growth in supply of gas. What has caused the shortages is basically the manner in which it has been used in last few years, he said.

The SNGPL in the last four years laid out around 36,000km of additional gas pipelines for supply of about 750mmcfd of gas to multiple entities, especially the rural villages, CNG stations and also to some big consumers, the KCCI chief said.

According to KCCI, “irresponsible supply of gas” by the SNGPL is the root cause that had led to severe gas shortages in the last over a year which in turn has impacted the power supply as well.

Noting that the SNGPL doled out connections beyond its capacity, the SSGC and Government of Sindh took a cautious stance and additional connections were not given otherwise the situation in Sindh could have been the same which prevails today with SNGPL.

Hence in all fairness, Sindh has sacrificed its progress at the cost of national Interest, said Mian Abrar.

Sindh provides 72pc of gas and it has a constitutional right under Article 158 of the Constitution over its use, he said, adding that “it will be very unethical to challenge this provision relating to the right of the province where such resources lie.”

Despite Article 158, Karachi faced severe shortages of gas in last winter and there was continuous load-shedding from November 2011 to March 2012 which impacted Industry and KESC, Mian Abrar maintained.

He also referred to the agenda which wants the conference to examine if there is a case for continued supply to privatised KESC from NTDC system when load-shedding in Karachi is 2-3 hours, but in rest of country is 12-16 hrs. “This is an unfortunate agenda and it reflects the mind-set and the basic agenda of the conference organisers,” he added By incorporating such items, the entire framework of the conference and its objectives have become seriously tainted and malafide, Mian Abrar maintained.

“In our view, this conference is unlikely to yield any worthwhile results and will only breed further difference, especially given the current political climate in Punjab.

The KCCI maintained that GoP is presently importing 6 million tons of coal.

KESC & Pepco have already finalised projects for converting their power plants from gas/oil to coal. This will increase the imports of coal to over 22.0 million tons within next one year or so.

The government of Pakistan, he said, can save oil and coal imports by facilitating the Sindh government in undertaking speedy actions at Thar Coal Mining.

The Sindh government needs to be encouraged to undertake mining through its own resources while provinces must be encouraged to make investment in renewable energy projects, especially wind, small hydro, solid waste and sea-waves/tidal energy projects.

WB/ADB may be requested to help provinces to build capacity on renewable energy projects, Mian Abrar drew Prime Minister’s attention.