'Electricity supply industry needs overhaul'

Indunil HEWAGE

Authorities need to bring in desirable changes to rescue the ailing electricity supply industry, said Dr. Tilak Siyambalapitiya at the inaugural Electrical Engineers' Forum of the Institution of Engineers

"The degree of confusion in the local electricity industry has increased in the recent past, and Sri Lanka doesn't have a proper plan for the financial recovery of loss making petroleum and electricity industries.

"Shedding stagnant traditional ideas in the face of new regulatory environment is a difficult task and there are problems and misunderstanding among almost all the stakeholders on how this system works, how customers and society a t large would benefit from it. But we need to give economic regulation a chance to prove itself. I think we are not too late to take remedial measures to bring the petroleum and electricity sectors back to profitability if we revitalize the new regulatory system that we have put in place.

"The country's electricity pricing structure is highly complicated, however, it's not the most complicated electricity pricing structure in the South Asian region. Sri Lanka would probably be the only country in South Asia where all points of electricity supply are monitored and invoiced." he said