Pakistan's energy sector has undergone substantial reforms during the last three decades with the aim to improve its operational performance and to cater to the growing energy needs of the economy. In the wake of these reforms, the WAPDA Act was passed in 1998 to achieve operational and financial efficiencies. Pakistan's electricity market is still hampered by issues like extended blackouts, electricity thefts, high circular debt and poor service quality. The electricity distribution sector is thus an interesting case to investigate its efficiency in the post-reform period by examining the impact of service-quality parameters (SQPs), which have generally been neglected in the literature. Stochastic frontier analysis has been used to estimate technical efficiency, while the Malmquist Productivity Index is implemented to decompose total factor productivity (TFP) into scale change, technical change and efficiency change from 2006 to 2016. We conclude that the technical efficiency score declines from 98 percent to 36 percent with the inclusion of SQPs in the models. The results also indicate a negative trend in scale change, implying that distribution companies are not operating at the technically optimal scale. We propose that the regulatory body should change its governance regime and focus on incentive-based regulation instead of rate-of-return regulation.

在过去的三十年中，巴基斯坦的能源部门经历了重大改革，目的是改善其运营绩效并满足经济中不断增长的能源需求。经过这些改革，1998年通过了《 WAPDA法》，以提高运营和财务效率。巴基斯坦的电力市场仍然受停电时间延长，电力盗窃，高额循环债务和服务质量差等问题的困扰。因此，配电部门通过研究服务质量参数（SQP）的影响来研究改革后时期的效率，这是一个有趣的案例，而文献中通常忽略了这些影响。随机前沿分析已用于估算技术效率，实施Malmquist生产率指数是为了将2006年至2016年的全要素生产率（TFP）分解为规模变化，技术变化和效率变化。我们得出结论，在将SQP包括在内的情况下，技术效率得分从98％下降至36％。楷模。结果还表明规模变化呈负面趋势，这意味着分销公司的技术规模没有达到最佳。我们建议监管机构应更改其治理机制，并专注于基于激励的监管，而不是收益率监管。结果还表明规模变化呈负面趋势，这意味着分销公司的技术规模没有达到最佳。我们建议监管机构应更改其治理机制，并专注于基于激励的监管，而不是收益率监管。结果还表明规模变化呈负面趋势，这意味着分销公司的技术规模没有达到最佳。我们建议监管机构应更改其治理机制，并专注于基于激励的监管，而不是收益率监管。