RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The government on Tuesday decided to keep the electricity tariff unchanged at an average rate of Rs 11.52 per unit against a Rs 13.81 per unit as recommended by National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra). The Prime Minister’s office also announced that “the government has decided not to burden the electricity consumers with new tariff for the year 2013-14 as determined by NEPRA and maintain it at the level of current tariff. The average national tariff for the year 2013-14 as determined by NEPRA is Rs 13.81/Unit while the current average national tariff is Rs 11.52/unit”.

Recently, the government notified a 29 paisa/unit equalization surcharge which was to be offset with a reduction of 30 paisa/unit due to fuel price adjustment resulting in zero impact on the consumers. It has also been decided to continue a subsidy for the domestic and agricultural consumers to lessen the burden of expensive energy mix in the power generation.

The decision has been taken by the Prime Minister to provide relief to consumers, specially the domestic consumers. The power generation in the country is predominately run on expensive fuel which results in higher generation cost and higher tariff to be paid by the end consumers. The government is making all-out efforts to absorb the impact of the higher tariff and pass on minimum impact to the end consumers.

The power generation mechanism is focused on ensuring running of least expensive plants first to ensure that minimum fuel charges are passed on to consumers. New projects with an expected capacity of about 10400 MW are being pursued based on cheap sources of fuel like coal and hydropower which will result in reduction in cost of generation in the coming years.