The Ministry of Energy’s Power Division has signed a Transaction Advisory Services Agreement with the International Finance Corporation, a member of the World Bank Group, to accelerate the deployment of smart metering infrastructure across Pakistan’s electricity distribution network. Under the agreement, the International Finance Corporation will serve as transaction advisor and carry out a comprehensive techno-commercial assessment to design either a service-provider model or a public-private partnership framework for the initiative. The deal is aimed at facilitating large-scale installation, operation, and maintenance of smart meters for approximately 10 million single-phase electricity connections across the country, and is expected to attract both local and international investors into Pakistan’s power sector modernization agenda.
At the heart of the programme is the Advanced Metering Infrastructure, which enables real-time monitoring of electricity consumption, enhances billing accuracy, improves recovery rates, and helps detect and reduce power theft through automated anomaly detection. The system also reduces reliance on manual processes, minimizing human error that has long been a source of inaccuracy and financial leakage across Pakistan’s distribution companies. The reform program is framed as part of the government’s broader vision for a modernized energy system, focusing on replacing outdated infrastructure with advanced digital solutions to improve transparency, operational efficiency, and financial sustainability across distribution companies that have historically carried large accumulated losses driven in part by poor metering and recovery systems.
The government has also reported significant progress on the procurement side. As part of competitive bidding reforms, a 40 percent reduction in the cost of both single-phase and three-phase smart meters has been achieved through an international competitive bidding process, generating meaningful savings for the national exchequer and consumers. Distribution companies have been instructed to install smart meters for all new electricity connections, effectively discontinuing the issuance of traditional analog meters. Existing three-phase consumers, covering commercial and industrial users, will be transitioned to smart meters within a defined timeline to ensure full integration into the digital system.
To address the backlog of faulty and defective meters, the Ministry of Energy has coordinated with the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority. Recent regulatory decisions have authorized distribution companies to replace defective units with smart meters, further accelerating the pace of the nationwide upgrade. The International Finance Corporation’s involvement as transaction advisor lends international credibility and technical depth to the structuring of the public-private partnership, a function that will be critical in ensuring the framework is bankable and attractive enough to draw the private capital and expertise needed to execute a rollout at the scale of 10 million connections. The Ministry of Energy reaffirmed its commitment to building an efficient, transparent, and consumer-focused power sector as the agreement enters into force.
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