Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has expressed resolve of his Government to reduce the cost of electricity, urging against politicizing the issue. Addressing the Federal Cabinet meeting, he pointed out that his administration is protecting consumers using up to 200 units a month and it has allocated Rs. 50 billion to provide relief to such consumers for the months of June, July and August. Similarly, he also maintained that the Government has reduced the electricity cost for the industry by Rs. 8.50 per unit. The Prime Minister might have genuine reasons to contend that his Government was working to reduce the cost of electricity but the ground reality is quite opposite. During the last fiscal year that ended on June 30, the federal government approved a 26% increase in the cost of electricity.
On July 13, the public, which was already bearing the brunt of rising inflation, suffered another blow after the Government tacked on another 20% hike. The measures that the Prime Minister has referred to are no more than window dressing as these are either time or category specific, providing no relief to the general public, which is demand of the people protesting against back-breaking power bills they are receiving due to increase in base tariff, so-called fuel and quarterly adjustments and proportionate increase in multiple taxes that the authorities collect on power bills.
The Prime Minister was necessarily referring to the protest and sit-in of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) but it is not politicization of the issue. Irrespective of the political motives of the JI or any other party, those demanding review of the exploitative energy tariff are representing aspirations of the people as consumers of all categories have badly been hit by the mindless policy of hiking power charges every now and then without the mettle to tackle the real challenges and factors. Focus on solar, wind and hydel generation has the potential to resolve the issue of unbearable electricity tariff but there are no indications that the Government has a workable and sustained policy to promote these alternate resources of energy and instead some of the policy measures amount to discourage use of solar power.
The issue of electricity price has assumed alarming proportions as people have no means to pay their hefty bills and spare resources for other necessities of life. Mere sloganeering and adhoc relief will not solve the problem and therefore, the Government must listen to the voice of the people in this regard. Apart from the staggering tariff that needs to be rationalized, the Government has not been able to streamline working of the power companies as they continue to fleece consumers using different tactics including average bills for the entire month, pro-rate reading, fake readings and non-replacement of defective meters.
The latest report of NEPRA on the issue of inflated bills for the months of April-June clearly proves there are some elements in Discos who want to provoke people against the elected Government. An investigation by the regulatory authority has revealed that millions of consumers across the country were subjected to ‘inflated bills’ during the April-June period as they lost their entitlement to subsidised rates and slab benefits. It found that all power companies, including Karachi Electric, have started applying pro rata adjustments to bills for periods fewer than 30 days in clear violation of the service manual.
This has resulted in a “significant number of consumers being reclassified from “protected” to unprotected categories, from lifeline to non-lifeline, and from lower to higher tariff slabs, which resulted in inflated bills.
The NEPRA has directed all power companies that the consumers charged on pro rata basis during April 2024 to June 2024 for readings less than defined billing months be adjusted with actual units so recorded. We hope the directive of the authority would be followed in letter and spirit and in future the pro rata clause would not be misused to squeeze undue payments from the already burdened consumers.
