World Bank urges Pakistan to reform gas sector, split utilities for debt control

The World Bank is pushing Pakistan to develop a road map for gas-sector reforms to unbundle the public utilities aimed at bringing efficiency, controlling losses and curtailing circular debt. The bank also wants the government to unbundle the distribution and transmission network of gas utilities and set up more firms by splitting the existing two companies. At present, two public gas utilities – Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) – are catering to needs of consumers across the country. Owing to a wide network, they have not been able to curb losses, resulting in the accumulation of circular debt, which has now reached Rs2.6 trillion. The planned new measures in the gas sector will help to reduce the debt. Earlier, the power sector faced a circular debt of Rs2.6 trillion for years that impacted the performance of energy chain.