ISLAMABAD - National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has provided accumulated relief of Rs 4.46 billion to the power consumers as it has decided power tariff for eight months (November 2019 to June 2020) for EX-WAPDA distribution companies (Discos).
The decision was taken in a public hearing conducted by the NEPRA on CPPA petition for the monthly fuel charges adjustment for the eight months period from November 2019 to June 2020 for XWDISCOs.
In the hearing, NEPRA had decided increase in electricity rates for five months (November, December, January, February and March) with accumulated impact of Rs 4.86 per unit and allowed accumulated decrease of Rs 3.09 per unit for three months (April, May and June).
However, after making adjustment in tariff hike and reduction in electricity rates for eight months, the power regulator said that power consumers would have accumulated relief of Rs 4.46 billion.
This relief will be given in month of August and September 2020.The relief will not be applicable to the consumers of K-Electric, agriculture tube well and lifeline consumers.
The accumulated impact of increase has been estimated at Rs 31 billion and impact of relief is Rs 35 billion.
Per unit impact would be different for different months and cannot be quoted as per unit, since each month would have different consumption units on accumulated basis, a Nepra official said.
Nepra approved increase of Rs 0.98 per unit for November, Rs 1.88 for December 2019. Nepra also allowed increase in tariff of Rs 0.93 per unit for January, Rs 0.39 per unit for February and Rs 0.68 per unit for March 2020.
However, power regulator decided to reduce electricity rate by Rs 0.68 per unit for April, Rs 1.17 per unit for May and Rs 1.24 per unit for June 2020.
Chairman Nepra, Tauseef H. Farooqi said that high electricity bills have make to consumers cry. He said that instead of cheaper energy source the government is using expensive fuel for power generation.
Chairman raised question why furnace oil based power plants were operated in months of December and January?
Chairman NEPRA further said that deferment of electricity prices review would put burden on the consumers. He said that NTDC reveals faults in transmission system every month but it had no plan to remove these faults.
Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) had suggested for uniform tariff after working out projected tariff for year. CPPA officials said that they had to operate furnace oil based plants to meet rising demand of electricity. They asked Nepra to give in writing not to operate furnace oil based power plants. They said that CPPA had Rs 17 billion outstanding and arrears were piling up due to delay in verifying data on technical grounds. They said that an amount of Rs 31 billion had been deferred due to technical reasons.
Meanwhile, NEPRA also conducted public hearing on quarterly adjustments of XWDISCOs on account of variation in PPP for 2nd & 3rd quarters from October-December 2019 and January-March 2020. As per the petition, XWDISCO have requested NEPRA to allow transfer of Rs 162.36 billion to the power consumers on account of variation in PPP for 2nd & 3rd quarters. In case the regulator approved the XDISCOS petition, the electricity tariff will go up by Rs 1.60 per unit.
Nepra also conducted public hearing regarding petition of K-Electric Monthly Fuel Charges Adjustment for the period January 2020 to May 2020, quarterly adjustment for the quarters ended December 2019 and March 2020 under Multi Year Tariff (MYT) 2017-2023.
For the monthly fuel price adjustments for the Month of January, February and March, NEPRA has allowed to transfer the burden of Rs 2.260 billion to KE consumers, while for April and May the regulator has decided to provide a relief of Rs 2.740 billion to the consumers of KE.
Regarding the quarterly adjustments, NEPRA said that it would examine the data provided by KE regarding increase in electricity rates and decision would be issued after verifying data.
