ISLAMABAD: Amid confirmation of overcharging of consumers in almost all the public and private distribution companies (Discos) through larger than 30/31-day monthly billing cycles, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Thursday ordered punitive action against all those responsible and firmed up about Rs1.95 per unit additional fuel cost to be charged to consumers of ex-Wapda Discos.

While presiding over a public hearing on over-billing, Nepra chairman Tauseef H. Farooqui directed all Discos, including KE, to take action against all those responsible for conducting meter readings for more than 30 or 31 days, resulting in extra charges to consumers because of overshooting tariff slabs.

While the over-billing days varied from company to company, it was disclosed that the Multan Electric Power Company (Mepco) had even charged bills for 52 days in monthly bills from the consumers in Rahim Yar Khan. It was noted that its reading cycles in certain cases ranged between 35 and 52 days instead of 30 or 31 days of a month.

The Nepra chairman observed that over-billing had deprived consumers of the benefit of slabs. “How will that benefit be returned to the consumers?” he asked.

Seeks ways to compensate consumers

The Mepco CEO responded that he was investigating the matter but conceded that over-billing was done for 30 to 37 days in May due to Covid and Eid holidays.

The Lahore Electric Supply Company (Lesco) CEO said that readings exceeding a month could be called over-billing that took place in its jurisdiction in July due to Ashura and gazetted holidays. He said the workforce actually got only 20 days of meter reading and billing a month after setting aside gazetted holidays.

The Nepra chairman and vice-chairman Rafique Shaikh were flabbergasted over similar explanations by other companies as well and said if this was not over-billing than nothing else could be described so because consumers lost the slab benefits and were charged at higher rates just because of over-reading.

Mr Farooqui refused to accept the holidays, corona and Ashura explanations, saying if armed forces are not ever called back from borders due to the holidays, there was no justification for other essential services to give up their responsibilities on such flimsy grounds.

Mr Sheikh said the regulator would not tolerate such practices at all and demanded that every Disco submit detailed reports on the issue along with workable solutions as to how to compensate the consumers, a majority of whom did not even notice what the government institutions had actually done to them.

He also wanted to know if the over-billing was intentional or due to some technical issues, which in any case should have been reported to the regulator if the problem was technical.

K-Electric chief financial officer Amir Ghaziani also confirmed that it was difficult to go to some areas due to Muharram processions, otherwise K-Electric did not deliberately overbill consumers. He said some consumers of KE were billed for 34 days but explained that the company made adjustments in the subsequent month.

The Nepra chief said it would give a detailed judgement on the issue in due course. The regulator also conducted hearing on Rs2.07 per unit increase in power tariff under monthly fuel charges adjustments (FCA) for ex-Wapda Discos for electricity consumed in August.

The Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) said the Discos had charged consumers a reference fuel tariff of Rs4.73 per unit in August while actual fuel cost turned out to be Rs6.805 per unit, hence the additional fuel cost of Rs2.07 per unit should be charged to consumers in the coming month.

It reported that RLNG costs were 76pc higher than reference costs while furnace oil-based power cost was 57pc higher. Nepra questioned why Rs10bn extra was spent on power generation from furnace oil in August.

It was informed that power plants received 300mmcfd less gas than the demand for power plants. The regulator said that based on further verification of data, it would allow an increase of Rs1.95 to Rs2 per unit in tariff with additional revenue impact of Rs30-35bn.

Published in Dawn, October 1st, 2021