ISLAMABAD: The federal government declined on Thursday to pass on up to 79 paisa per unit reduction in the electricity tariff for consumers from lower middle class in Karachi and moved a case for its withdrawal.
As a consequence, the increase allowed by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) in electricity rates of up to 100 per cent has been put on hold for the time being because the entire tariff structure is required to be revised under one notification.
“An application for the review of tariff structure has been sent to Nepra,” a senior official of the Ministry of Water and Power told Dawn. “There were a few discrepancies in the tariff determined by Nepra that need to be removed before a formal notification is issued,” he added.
The official said Nepra’s determination regarding revision in tariff for the K-Electric was against the spirit of the uniform tariff policy of the government and did not meet the revenue target. Hence the ministry has sought a review.
He said the government had decided to provide Rs2 per unit subsidy to lifeline consumers using less than 50 units per month with sanctioned load of up to 5 kilowatt. Nepra on Wednesday increased the rate for this category from Rs2 per unit to Rs4 per unit.
The power ministry official conceded that an advice on subsidy sent by the ministry to Nepra erroneously omitted the mention of Rs2 per unit subsidy for lifeline consumers and this had now been corrected.
Secondly, the ministry could not digest a reduction of 69 paisa per unit in the tariff for first 100 units (1-100 units) and 79 paisa per unit reduction in the second slab of 101-200 units per month approved by the regulator. Therefore, it wrote to the regulator that it had reduced subsidy by 69 paisa per unit for first 100 units and 79 paisa per unit for 101-200 units to maintain applicable tariff at the existing rate and on a par with consumers in rest of the country.
In this case, the official said, the ministry had provided slab-wise subsidy rates to Nepra last year when the tariff for consumers of distribution companies of Wapda were increased in October last year.
At that time, however, electricity rates for consumers of K-Electric could not be increased along with consumers of distribution companies of Wapda due to legal and procedural hitches and mathematical discrepancies by the K-Electric. But Nepra did not seek fresh advice on subsidy from the government and revised K-Electric tariff after removing mathematical errors on the basis of old subsidy advice.
The official said based on fresh advice of the government, Nepra would recalculate the tariff sheet that would be notified by the government next week.
He said the applicable rates for first 100 units would be Rs5.79 per unit, followed by Rs8.11 per unit for 101-200 units.
The rates would, however, increase to Rs11.68 per unit for 1-300 units. The consumption of 301-700 units would be charged at Rs10.67 per unit while more than 700 units would be charged at Rs12.93 per unit. The tariff for agricultural consumers would be increased by Rs3.58 per unit.