6 companies make electricity meters in Pakistan:

1- Creative (https://www.creativegroup.com.pk/meters.pdf)
2- KBK (https://kbk.com.pk/all-products/static-energy-meters/)
3- MicroTech (http://www.mtilimited.com/meters/energy-meters.php)
4- PEL (https://pel.com.pk/energy-meter)
5- Transfopower (https://transfopower.pk/meterpage.html)
6- Vertex (http://vertex.pk/portfolio/products/)

Most of of the DISCOs are permanent customers of these companies, and if are in the market as a buyer for a private meter to use as a submeter, these are the brands you’ll be getting. A few imported meters by IskraEMECO and XuJi are also in use.

There used to be Syed Bhais but they went out of business in 2011 when it was still the time of disc-based electromechanical meters. You can still find a Syed Bhais meter on some old houses and an example of antiques.

Problem statement:
Most if not all 3-phase meters of these companies show the instantaneous power factor, and some even show the cumulative power factor! But when it comes to single-phase meters, none of them show power factor! Although they do show instantaneous load (kW), current month’s highest load (kW) and previous month’s highest load (kW).

These companies must upgrade their single phase meters to show power factor too! If they are not upgrading it of their own initiative, then NTDC must release new specification requiring them to do so!

Pension is 60% of the salary at retirement.
Then, as Pakistani government regulations are becoming more and more cucked by the day, previously the widow of the government employee continued to get 50% of *his* pension. The pretext was that the pension was to support 2 people, now one of them is deceased so only half the funds are required. Makes sense, no?

Around 15 years ago the law was changed, now the widow continues to get 100% of the pension. Why? Because feminism is just a way to snatch resources from men and give it to women without them having earned it.

Combine it with women living longer than men. So the man served till 60, died at 80, he gets pension for 20 years, but his widow lives till 90, so another 10 years will the tap keep flowing. This is regardless whether the sons of said auntie earn oodles of money and can easily financially support their mom.
Oh wait: if the woman in question was a government employee herself, she will continue to receive 100% of her own pension as well as 100% of her deceased husband’s pension as long as she doesn’t remarry. Do you expect a great-grandma of 70+ to get married again?

Oh wait, after the death of the auntie, their unwed/divorcee/widow daughters will continue to get the pension as long as the last one of them is alive. Once the fountain has stopped after the death of the mom, it can anytime be opened again once any of the sons-in-law of the uncle in question dies. If the deceased son-in-law was also a government employee, then she gets to enjoy more than one pension. Recall that she will continue to get 100% of her dead husband’s pension too.

So if he served for maybe a few years in a government job, his widow and daughters will continue to suck the blood of the nation as long as they don’t die.

So uncle ji served the country for 20 years, became eligible for pension, now for years after his retirement, he will continue to suck the blood of the nation, when he dies, his widow will continue to suck, then when she dies, their daughters will begin to suck. Suppose someone retires in 2023, it can safely be assumed he will live for the next 20 years, his widow will further live another 10 years, then his daughters will live at least another 20 years. So for 20 years of service, they get to earn 50 years of pension.

All this is funded by applying more taxes on the current working class private companies employees who get absolutely zero social security. The SSI & EOBI is only extended to the most luckiest select permanent employees only in very good companies where regulatory compliance is upheld. Even then so the EOBI pensioners get only 8500 per month.

But stop! What if a woman is a government servant and dies, will her widower and sons get any pension? And the answer is ____. And anyway men die early, so they’re a less of a load.

Now further apply the factor of “ghost pensioners”. The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation of a few pensioners continue to suck the pension even after decades of the death of the concerned person. This definitely isn’t possible without inside help so a certain amount is shared with the corrupt people who to make them turn a blind eye.

And this is how pension continues to plague the society paying for a select few government employees and their female relatives at expense of one’s own social security and disposable income.

Ever since incandescent bulbs went away and CFLs (Energy Saver) and later on LED bulbs came into vogue, along with other devices which use electronic power supplies (inverter fans, inverter fridges, inverter A/Cs, Dimmers for basic capacitor fans, mobile chargers and laptop chargers), the matter of power factor losses has become an extreme concern.

I have tested 7W LED bulbs of 3 famous brands. The best one had a power factor of 0.7, whereas the worst one had the power factor of 0.4; a similar story with laptop charger which had a power factor varying with load from 0.22 to 0.99!

Power is consumed (and billed) in kWh but it is generated in kVA! The DISCOs pay the GENCOs for manufacturing kVA but bill the customers in kWh. 1 kWh = 1 unit but that fault arises where the appliances have low power factor.

Simply put, a 7W LED bulb will cause an electricity bill of 7W but at the generation point (whether diesel, wind or solar), it will required 10W (basically 10VA) to be generated if its power factor is 0.7.
But if its power factor is a mere 0.4, it will want 18VA at the generator. For similar energy consumption (7W), different makes & brands make different qualities and it just means that if all the customer are buying low-PF products, power generation e.g. needs to be 22000 MW just to be able to bill 8800 MWh to the customers. To compensate for it, the unit rate is going up like never before – simply because modern switching power supplies operate on PWM principle and power factor has never before been as significant.

On one hand, industrial customers are forced to install “active power factor correction capacitor banks” to maintain minimum 0.8 (and in case of K-Electric, 0.9) – on the other hand, appliance manufacturers have no obligation to declare the power factor on the device label or box, neither it is required from them to maintain any minimum power factor. If all the LED bulbs basically come with a power factor of 0.98, a big number of power generation doesn’t even need to be turned on.