ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced a relief package for the electricity consumers saying that 17 million consumers will not be charged the fuel cost adjustment (FCA) which doubles the amount of bill.
PM’s relief decision comes a day after the DISCOs have requested the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) to allow quarterly tariff adjustment which may cause additional burden of at least Rs94 billion on the power consumers.
Almost every month NEPRA is allowing power distribution companies to extort billions of rupees extra from the consumers in the name of FCA and quarterly tariff adjustment at this time has shocked the consumers across the country.
PM Shehbaz Sharif said that more than 17 million people will be exempted from fuel charges adjustment on electricity bills. He said that federal minister for power Khurram Dastgir Khan will announce the details of this relief programme on Wednesday (today).
PM Shehbaz, however, did not share any further details about the nature of the relief to be given to the power consumers.
According to available details, the power Distribution Companies (Discos) have demanded an increase of Rs 3.7 per unit along with recovery of Rs 94 billion additional amount from the consumers for 4th quarter of CFY 2021-22 under Quarterly Tariff Adjustment (QTA) mechanism.
The quarterly tariff adjustment (QTA) is sought on account of capacity/transmission charges and Market Operator Fee (MOF), impact of Transmission & Distribution (T&D) losses on FCA and variable operation and maintenance charges. The 4th quarter adjustment also includes the impact of additional recovery on incremental sales, i.e., April to June 2022 in line with the notified mechanism in this regard.
One the one hand the coalition government claims that it will provide relief to people from growing inflation while on the other, frequent hike in power, gas and petroleum prices have increased problems for the masses.
