Consumers to face another hike of Rs 4.33 per unit

Aftab Ahmed

Islamabad: Chilling December seems heavy on the wallet of electricity consumers. At the start of the month, they have already been dispatched inflated bills due to high prices of electricity for the month of October under FCA.

Now CPPA has again filed a petition under FCA for the month of November seeking again rise in the electricity bills.

National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) notified a reception of petition by CPPA seeking another increase of electricity tariff. This time CPPA has sought an increase of Rs 4.33 per unit for the month of November.

After oil, electricity price increased up to Rs 1.68 per unit

NEPRA has fixed a public hearing for this petition on Dec 29 to decide on it regarding the increase in prices of electricity. It is pertinent to mention here that in November, the Authority has also notified collection of Rs 4.74 per unit from electricity consumers under the head of FCA of October.

According to CPPA petition, the reference price of Rs 3.74 per unit for the month of November is under FCA against the actual price of Rs 8.07 per unit. So It sought an increase of Rs 4.33 per unit for the month of November.

Contrary to the FCA of Oct, the petition further said that the electricity from HSD and RFO remained under 2 percent of the total production of the electricity for the month under review.

The main contributors of the total electricity production for the month of November are hydel with 33 %, coal at 16 %, gas at 13 %, RLNG at 14 %, Nuclear at 18 %, and others.

The highest contributors as per unit were coal with Rs 13.14 per unit whereas the cost of RLNG remained 17.28 per unit for the month under review.

The petition further revealed that the total cost of energy generated for this particular month of November is Rs 53.63 billion. The increase in cost would result in increasing prices of electricity for consumers of Pakistan.

After the inclusion of the previous adjustment at the rate of Rs 1.60 per unit, the cost of electricity delivered to Discos worked out Rs 66.53 billion, said the petition.