Officials of the Power Division (Ministry of Energy) and National Electric Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) are meeting today (Wednesday) to draft the modalities of how to pass on the relief of Rs. 5 per unit announced by the Prime Minister to the electricity consumers.
The Prime Minister has announced a reduction of Rs. 5 per unit in power tariff on a monthly basis till June 2022. However, no mechanism has been sorted out regarding passing on the benefit of the reduction to the consumers, an official source told ProPakistani.
Even the power sector regulator had little idea of the mechanism of the PM announced relief. On Tuesday, while presiding over the hearing on KE’s petition on account of Fuel Cost adjustments, Chairman Tauseef H. Farooqui noted that the Prime Minister had announced Rs. 5 per unit relief in countrywide electricity tariff, but it was not clear how this decision would be implemented. He said that NEPRA was looking into the matter and would soon hold a meeting with the energy minister and secretary power division for clarity on the mechanism for relief implementation.
Earlier it was believed that the government would downward revise the base tariff for the provision of Rs. 5 per unit relief to the consumers, but Federal Minister for Energy, Hammad Azhar, via a tweet, turned down the impression and tweeted, “On the instructions of the PM, Fuel Cost Adjustments that have been incurred in electricity bills (due to rise in prices of imported fuels) since last few months to the tune of Rs. 4-5 per unit will be absorbed by the govt henceforth for residential/commercial consumers.” However, he didn’t make it clear how the Rs. 5 per unit relief would be adjusted in months when FCAs stay lower than Rs. 5 per unit.
The NEPRA delegation with its chairman will hold a meeting with Federal Minister for Energy and his team to determine the feasibility of continuing the subsidy if the FCA for a month is around Rs. 2 per unit or Rs. 3 per unit.
Similarly, the source said that the KE’s FCA for January is Rs. 2.90 per unit, which is short of Rs. 2.10 per unit of the PM’s relief. The source said that the January relief on account of FCA will be transferred to the power consumers in March; February in April; March in May; and April in June.
