Islamabad-National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) has allowed a hike Re0.51 per unit for K-Electric (KE) and Re0.0819 per unit to XWDiscos on account of quarterly and monthly adjustments respectively.
The NEPRA on Tuesday allowed ex-WAPDA Distribution companies (XWDiscos) to charge an additional Rs0.0819 per unit on account of monthly fuel charges adjustments (FCA) for September 2022, said a notification issued here Tuesday. This amount would be collected from power consumers in their billing month of November 2022. On October 26, the NEPRA conducted a public hearing on the petition of the Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) for a tariff hike of Re0.20 per unit on account of monthly FCA. According to the regulator’s notification, the adjustment shall be applicable to all the consumer categories except Electric Vehicle Charging Stations (EVCS) and lifeline consumers.
According to data submitted to the NEPRA, total electricity of 12,877.82 GWh was generated in September 2022, at the cost of Rs127.630 billion. The net electricity delivered to Discos was 12,520.98 GWh at Rs126.662 billion, said the petition. Earlier, NEPRA in a hearing on the federal government motion, has allowed KE to hike power tariff by Rs0.51 per unit on account of quarterly adjustments for the January-March quarter of 2021-22
The NEPRA has allowed K-Electric (KE) to hike power tariff by Rs3.55 per unit on account of quarterly adjustments for the January-March quarter of 2021-22. However, KE had sought increase in tariff by Rs3.892 per unit. The NEPRA decision for an increase of Rs3.55 per unit in tariff had been communicated to the federal government for notification.
It was supposed that to maintain uniform tariff across Discos and KE, the federal government would give a subsidy to neutralise increase in tariff and no increase would be passed on to the consumers. However, the federal government had filed a review petition with power regulator that Rs0.5087 per unit be passed on to the consumers, whereas, the remaining impact of tariff increase would be borne by the federal government through subsidy. The NEPRA has conducted a public hearing on Tuesday to consider the review motion of the federal government. During the hearing, interveners had opposed any increase in electricity rates and objected the expensive power generated by KE’s own power plants. Interveners said that KE had been generating expensive electricity and KE administration should take steps to produce cheaper electricity.
They further said that KE transmission system should be taken over by the government and be nationalised. However, the NEPRA Chairman Tauseef H Farooqi said that world had been shifting towards privatisation as it was not task of the government to run business. Pakistani governments had also been advocating to privatise the all power distribution companies (Discos) to cut losses and improve recovery of electricity bills by bringing efficiency in the distribution system. The NEPRA chairman said that KE was already privatised entity and was surprised the interveners were asking for taking its control and nationalise it.
The intervener has, however, clarified and said that he did not mean that distribution companies should be privatised, rather insisted that transmission system should be taken over by the government to improve efficiency. During the hearing, the attention was also drawn towards the expensive power generation by the KE from its own power plants. It was also brought to the notice of authority that power generation cost from KE plants stood at Rs37.7 per unit last month which was very high.
Interveners demanded that KE should replace the inefficient and expensive power plants with the most efficient power plants to produce cheaper electricity. The NEPRA authorities informed during the hearing that they were working on a plan to replace inefficient power plants with efficient power plants owned by KE. They said that inefficient power plants should be shut down. Interveners also raised question over tripping in Karachi. They said that KE should resolve issues for tripping which led to blackouts in Karachi.