LAHORE - Despite the anti theft campaigns, electricity pilferage is at its peak particularly in posh localities with 100,000 kundas (direct supply) in Lahore and about 600, 000 kundas in Karachi. China, which is already facing power crunch, has made no offer of electricity to Pakistan while Iran, which wants its footsteps in Balochistan, is offering it at high cost. Former Managing Director Pepco Tahir Basharat Cheema said this while delivering a lecture on 'Power Sector in Pakistan as Today here on Thursday. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Pakistan and The Institute of Engineers Pakistan jointly organised the lecture. To meet the energy needs, Cheema said that the energy conservation, new power plants and adoption of national power policy was the need of the hour. As a national policy, Thar coal reserves need to be utilised very fast, he stressed and added the environmental-friendly mechanism was available to utilise this natural asset. The experts, engineers at large attended the lecture. He criticised the extensive use of air-conditions (ACs), saying: 'We are wasting about 6,000 megawatt for getting cool. He said he wanted the regulatory authorities including Nepra, Ogra etc. more powerful and free in decision-making. At the same time, he stressed the need of replacement of old power plants and also replacement of 'mindset. Tahir Basharat said 'he sees no corruption in rental power projects. He gave 'good news that about 10,000-15,000 MW would be added in national grid by 2015 to meet the energy needs. While referring, Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) and Alternative Energy Development Board, he said that much needs to be done in this regard. He said the first wind farm was inducted in April 2009 and since then 'we could not inducted more solar, biomass and wind projects. He suggested private sector IIPs, rehabilitation of existing public sector GENCOs plants, installation of new combined plant in the premises where an existing power station abandoned. Cheema recommended development of power parks, new power stations based on gas/oil and coal. He added that the proposed power parks will house 4,000-5,000 MW capacity and serve as 'base-load plants. 'There are number of transmission projects which need to be developed for evacuation of power from new large hydro projects in the north and from large thermal projects in the south, he said and added distribution system was also needed to be modernised on war-footing. Pakistan power sector is organised into nine distribution companies (DISCOs), four generation companies (GENCOs) and one national transmission and dispatch company (NTDC). Total installed capacity is around 20,000MW: 33 per cent hydro (Public sector) whereas out of 67 per cent thermal and two per cent nuclear. Peak demand is around 21,000 MW against availability of 155,000 MW. Total customers are 20.7 million including 2 million in KESC system. Transmission and distribution losses are 21 per cent excluding KESC with 34 per cent, he told.