Govt not increasing electricity tariff for consumers?

ISLAMABAD: The federal government on Saturday issued a notification, saying that it had not increased the power tariff for the consumers but only allowed quarterly adjustments.

The quarterly adjustments of Rs3.644/unit are for the quarter (April to June) of 2021-2022 which will not increase the bills as the government’s notified Schedule of Tariff (SoT) will be maintained during the first quarter of 2022-23.

However, state-run power distribution companies will charge an extra Rs0.1918/unit following the regulator’s instructions on account of fuel charge adjustments (FCA) for the month of August in their power billing for October. This adjustment is just for a month.

Also, the power tariff has been reduced by Rs4.15 per unit under the fuel cost adjustment (FCA) mechanism for October, as compared to September.

A day earlier, it was reported that the government had increased the power tariff, which was untrue, the Ministry of Energy said. However, quarterly adjustments and the FCA were notified.

The Power Division secretary said that keeping in view increasing electricity prices in the country, the government had decided not to increase the power tariff and continue with the quarterly adjustment, already included in the electricity bills for September.

In a statement, he said that the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) had announced its decision on the fourth quarterly adjustment for the year 2021-2022 on October 14. The amount would be recovered from the power consumers within the next four months starting from October 2022 till January 2023.

The ministry has requested NEPRA “to apply the quarterly adjustments for Quarter 4 of FY 2022 in four months period from October to January 2023, by maintaining the existing GoP notified Schedule of Tariff (SoT) for Q-4 FY20, Q-1,2 & 3 FY21 and Q-2 FY22 expiring in September 2022.”