ISLAMABAD: The government is set to deliver another power price hike as it prepares to pass Rs180 billion worth of additional burden to consumers of power distribution companies (Discos) soon.
On Friday, the power sector regulator concluded its public hearing regarding quarterly adjustments for the financial year 2017-18 power purchase prices (PPP), reports Dawn.
The hearing saw National Electric Power Regulatory Authority attending to the requests of six discos and was presided over by its Chairman Tariq Saddozai which included members from Punjab and Balochistan, namely Saif Ullah Chatha and Rahmatulla Baloch.
Earlier this week, the premier had approved a notification of an increase in base tariff for Discos for FY16, which would be passed onto consumers having an impact of Rs2 per unit or Rs200 billion on prevailing power rates.
After the conclusion of the hearing, an official said the additional impact of the prior year adjustment (PYA) for FY18 taking PPP difference into consideration was coming out of the rising net hydel profit to the provinces.
The official said overall impact of hydel profit for the last financial year 2017-18 was projected to stand around Rs250 billion, however, Rs70 billion had already been included in the end-consumer tariff, hence the net additional effect would be around Rs180 billion.
Nepra took the individual requests of six Discos from Quetta, Hyderabad, Multan, Peshawar, Sukkur and Gujranwala into consideration in its Friday hearing.
And their PYAs for FY16 had been notified by the previous federal government on 22nd March of 2018 and the notified computations would give a mechanism for quarterly adjustments on account of PPP.
Also, multi-year tariffs for four other Discos including Islamabad, Lahore, Faisalabad and Tribal areas have been notified.
The power sector regulator has computed the tariff of Gepco, Mepco, Hesco, Sepco and Qesco for FY18, which was sent to the federal government for notification.
Nepra taking into consideration that FY18 had already concluded, decided to take the impact of PYA during the course of the hearing.
PYA against capacity payments, operations and maintenance, utilization of system charges and transmission and distribution losses besides fuel component were sought by the six Discos.
Recently, Nepra had approved PYA to Iesco, Lesco, Fesco.
Furthermore, Nepra also took PYA requests of eight Discos into consideration during the course of the hearing.
Representatives from Pesco requested PYA of Rs17.839 billion, Hesco Rs15.453 billion, Mepco Rs23.50 billion, Sepco Rs6.158 billion, Gepco Rs10.464 billion and Qesco Rs9.9 billion respectively.
A senior official provided clarification to a question of Nepra Chairman regarding the adjustment of two quarters in annual tariffs saying tariff determination had already been forwarded to the federal government in July 2018 for notification.
