Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: The National Electric and Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) on Monday approved a hike of Rs7.90 in power tariff on account of fuel adjustment charges for May.
According to NEPRA officials, the prices of petroleum products significantly rose over the past few months in the global market. They added the cost would have spiked further had power plants used expensive fuels.
The Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) officials stated that the cost of coal also increased in light of the war between Russia and Ukraine and added that LNG cargoes were available at a cost of $42 per unit by the end of the July, but Pakistan could not purchase them due to its financial hardships.
The NEPRA chairman said the regulatory was in a fix as if it did not produce electricity, then there would be load-shedding and if it does generate power using imported fuel then that would lead to inflation. “The plants that could have produced a unit for Rs6-7 were opposed,” they claimed. The chairman urged the government to refrain from installing plants that ran on imported fuels.
On June 17, the authority approved an increase of Rs1.55 per unit in power tariff on account of quarterly adjustment. Power distribution companies (DISCOs) will recover Rs39 billion from the consumers following the tariff revision, a report in this newspaper had stated.
The regulatory authority had allowed an increase in power tariff on account of variation in capacity charges, variable operation and maintenance (O&M) cost, use of system charges, market operation fee and fuel cost adjustment (FCA) impact of transmission and distribution losses for the second quarter of financial year 2021-22.
On June 15, the federal government announced a massive increase in prices of all petroleum products – especially petrol by Rs24 per litre and high-speed diesel (HSD) by Rs59.16 per litre – the third such raise within a month. The government had raised the price of petrol by more than Rs84 per litre within just one month.
