The Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) has said that the high cost of doing business has proved to be dangerous for Pakistan’s industry, discouraging investment both in capacity and capability, calling for lessening the burden of heavy taxes on the power sector.
In a joint statement issued here on Saturday, PIAF senior vice chairman Nasir Hameed and vice chairman Javed Siddiqi condemned the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) for shifting power distribution companies’ inefficiencies’ burden of almost Rs58 billion to the consumers by jacking up the tariff by Rs5.94 per unit under Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) to be charged through March 2022 electricity bills.
Nasir Hameed said that constant hike in power tariff on the plea of fuel adjustment has pushed the electricity prices higher and added to the already soaring cost of trade and industry.
According to NEPRA notification, an increase of Rs5.94 per unit on account of FCA for Jan 2022 will be charged from the power consumers through the electricity bill of March 2022 which will cause additional burden of approximately Rs58.5 billion on consumers. Similarly, this increase in the power price by Rs5.94 per unit will be applicable to all the consumer categories of all the Ex-WAPDA power distribution companies.
Javed Siddiqi said that the regulatory authority had earlier increased power tariff by Rs3.09 per unit on account of FCA for Dec 2021 which placed an additional burden of Rs30 billion on the power consumers while more than 8.5 billion units of electricity were used in December last year.
He said that the Authority has also approved an increase of Rs 2.90 per unit in FCA of KE for Jan 2022 to recover Rs 3.176 billion from consumers after adjustments of Rs 550 million and Paisa 30 reduction in Quarterly Tariff Adjustment Oct-Dec 2021.
