ISLAMABAD:
The power consumers faced another increase in electricity tariff up to Rs0.95 per unit following the government’s decision to withdraw an Rs20 billion subsidy.
The federal government has filed a petition before National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to approve policy guidelines to withdraw Rs20 billion subsidy in the second phase of the subsidy reduction plan.
In the first phase, the government had split different slabs by creating new ones to reduce subsidies for power consumers. In that phase, the government had withdrawn an Rs42 billion subsidy per annum.
The government removed around 8 million power consumers from the subsidy net by reducing volume from 22 million to 13.9 million consumers. Now, in the second phase, the government is going to remove more consumers from the power subsidy network by withdrawing Rs20 billion per annum subsidy.
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The power regulator on Monday held a public hearing relating to the approval of the Policy Guidelines under Section 31 of the Regulation, Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power Act, 1997 for Retargeting of Power Sector Subsidies Phase-II.
Nepra had pointed out that the provision of subsidy was the mandate of the government. It said that the Energy Ministry (Power Division) had devised the subsidy reform programme, approved by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, which would be applied in three phases after approval from Nepra.
The power regulator had approved the first phase and notified it with effect from October 1, 2021. Under this programme, the power regulator expanded the definition of lifeline consumers. It approved new category of protected consumers having consumption up to 200 units consistently for six months.
The regulator also approved breakup of the 301-700 slab into four slabs — 301-400, 401-500, 501-600 and 601-700. Each of these slabs continued to get the previous slab benefit of less than 300 kWh slab.
