The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) on Friday approved an increase of Rs1.95 per unit in power tariff, putting an additional burden of Rs200 billion on consumers.
According to media reports, the tariff hike will be applicable to all consumers, including lifeline consumers using 50 units in a month. K-Electric consumers have been exempted from the tariff increase.
The approval came on a request of the federal government for application of uniform schedule of tariff for all distribution companies of ex-WAPDA along with “targeted tariff differential subsidy of Rs185 billion” to ensure uniform tariff.
Following the increase, the per-unit average power tariff has gone up to Rs16.13 from Rs14.38.
The new power rates will be applicable after issuance of a notification by the federal government in this regard.
On Thursday, NEPRA had allowed another 83-paisa per unit (kWh) increase in electricity rates of ex-Wapda distribution companies (DISCOs) under quarterly tariff adjustment (QTA) mechanism to generate over Rs84 billion revenue.
This came a day after the power regulator had notified about Rs1.54 per unit increase in power rates for these DISCOs under monthly fuel cost adjustment (FCA) to generate about Rs11.6bn additional revenue.
On top of these two decisions, the regulator on Friday issued its determination on the request of the federal government to jack up base electricity tariff by Rs1.95 per unit for the same Discos to charge yet another Rs200bn to consumers. The government had already announced the said increase, but would notify the same once cleared by NEPRA.
All put together, the total tariff increase, therefore, works to be about Rs4.32 per unit (around Rs296 billion). The average tariff for DISCOs, however, comes out to be Rs16.13 per unit instead of Rs13.35 at present given the fact that FCAs are applicable in tariff on monthly basis and replaced by FCA of next month.
