• Karachi residents to pay Rs1.72 extra under quarterly tariff adjustment
• Discos to rake in Rs22.3bn; lifeline consumers exempted from hike

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Wednesday approved an additional across-the-board charge of Rs1.15 per unit for electricity consumers throughout the country, including K-Electric, and also concluded the process of imposing another Rs1.72 per unit on K-E consumers for the next three months — January to March 2024.

Effectively, K-Electric consumers would have to pay a cumulative additional cost of Rs2.87 per unit in the upcoming three months of January to March once Nepra notifies it in a couple of days to clear the backlog on account of quarterly tariff adjustments and implement a uniform regulatory regime across the country without any discrimination or favour, notwithstanding different loss and efficiency levels of different power supply companies.

“The authority hereby allows the positive quarterly adjustments of Rs22.297 billion pertaining to the first quarter of the FY2023-24, to be recovered from the consumers of ex-Wapda distribution companies (XWDISCOs) in a period of three months i.e. January 2024 to March 2024,” read a determination issued by Nepra. The positive adjustment of Rs22.297bn has been allowed on account of variation in capacity charges, variable operations and management, additional recovery on incremental sales, use of system charges, market operator fee, and fuel cost adjustment (FCA) impact on transmission and dispatch losses for the quarter (July-September FY2023-24).

As part of the determination, Nepra also issued a schedule of tariff (SOT) to charge Rs1.15 per unit to all consumer categories, except for lifeline consumers using less than 50 and 51-100 units per month, to materialise Rs22.297bn in three months. Discos had demanded Rs23.055bn for the said period at the rate of Rs1.25 per unit.

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In the same order, Nepra allowed the application of quarterly adjustments on the consumers of K-E as well, with the same applicability period. “Accor­dingly, the instant quarterly adjustment of Rs1.1502/kWh shall also be charged from the consumers of K-Electric, to be recovered in a period of 03 months i.e. January to March 2024,” the order said. The regulator did not disclose the financial impact of this adjustment.

It said the application of the same rate to K-Electric had been allowed under the policy guidelines issued by the federal government on August 22, 2023 “for uniform application of quarterly adjustments on XWDISCOs and K-Electric consumers”. The policy guidelines stated that Nepra shall determine the same tariff rationalisation for K-Electric consumers as determined for XWDISCOs consumers.

In line with the same policy guidelines, the Nepra also held a formality of a public hearing to rubber-stamp the application of another Rs1.72 per unit additional cost to K-Electric consumers on account of two QTAs for the last fiscal year i.e. 2nd and 3rd quarter of FY2022-23 at the request of power division.

The regulator had already held public hearings on the subject twice and agreed to the application of these charges but had withheld formal notification because of lapses in the language of the decisions taken by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet and ratified by the cabinet.

Nepra had pointed out that the cabinet approved the uniform application of QTAs to K-Electric along with other Discos for the future but two previous quarters — October 1 to March 31 — were not covered emphatically.

On Tuesday, a brief public hearing was told that those shortcomings in the previous cabinet decisions had been rectified by the federal cabinet through a fresh decision on Nov 10 to meet legal requirements pointed out at previous public hearings.

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2023