ISLAMABAD – The stakeholders have termed the government’s winter relief package less lucrative, saying that excluding net meters consumers, capping it to 25 percent additional consumption and applying it to November’s intake will bring the saving of only Rs4 per unit instead of the early relief of upto Rs26 per unit claimed by the authorities.
In a public hearing on winter package for electricity consumers, conducted by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, stakeholders, particularly industrialists, have slammed the Power Division for not taking the industrialists on board prior to the decision. The public hearing was chaired by the chairman of Nepra. The federal government has announced Bijli Sahulat Package to provide a relief of upto Rs26 per unit, for various categories of consumers, for the upcoming three winter months. During the hearing, the regulator was informed that the winter package introduces a flat rate of Rs26.07 per unit for electricity consumed above each consumer’s historical usage benchmark for domestic, commercial and industrial consumers. According to the Ministry of Energy, in the winter package, domestic consumers will save 30 percent or Rs11.42 per unit on minimum additional consumption of electricity and 50 percent or Rs26 per unit on maximum additional consumption. The industrial consumers will save 18 percent or Rs5.72 per unit on minimum additional consumption of electricity and 37 percent or Rs15.5 per unit on maximum additional consumption. The Nepra Winter Package will be applicable for three months (December to February).
It was further informed that the package will be applicable on the billing cycle starting from December 10, 2024, which will also include 20 days consumption during the month of November. However, the representatives of the industry have slammed the decision of applying it on the November’s consumption. Consumers were unaware from the package in November, therefore they didn’t resort to additional consumption and were less likely to benefit from the first month of the relief package, they argued.
Similarly, the industrialists from Karachi rejected the winter package saying that net metering consumers were excluded from the relief package. They said that majority of the industries had installed net metering and the government had deprived them from the relief under the winter package. They further said that they were already paying high tariff in Karachi and due to this, the industry was struggling to survive by installing net metering because the industry could not afford a tariff of electricity from the national grid at Rs64 per unit. Similarly, capping the relief to 25 per cent additional consumption will deprive the consumers from the maximum benefits of the package. They further said that the claims of government to save up to Rs 26 per unit was not correct and added that there would be only saving of around Rs 4 per unit during these three months. The Nepra said that it would issue its detailed decision after reviewing stakeholder feedback and further examining the data.
Meanwhile, due to the ongoing law and order situation in the federal capital, Nepra had postponed a public hearings in the matter of Approval of Bid Evaluation Report (BER) submitted by K-Electric Limited (KEL) for 50 MW Winder and 100 MW Bela Projects at Balochistan. Similarly, the hearing in the matter of Write-off claims of K-Electric Limited was also postponed. All stakeholders, interested/affected persons and the general public are hereby informed that the public hearings on the subject matters fixed for November 27, 2024 and November 28, 2024 respectively have been postponed. New date of public hearings will be published and communicated later. All other information/conditions remain the same.
