ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Wednesday allowed 42 paise per unit increase in average tariff of distribution companies (Discos) of Wapda under quarterly tariff adjustments (QTA) for January-March.

The decision was taken at a public hearing presided over by Nepra chairman Tauseef H. Farooqui. The higher rate would be charged to consumers for three months and would be replaced by QTA for 4th quarter (April-June). Nepra would issue a formal notification over the next few days after verification of documents and invoices provided by the power companies.

The Discos had demanded the quarterly adjustment to recover Rs10.546 billion from power consumers on account of quarterly adjustment for capacity charges, transmission charges and market operator fee, impact of transmission and distribution losses and variable operation and maintenance charges.

The highest claims were made by Tribal Electric Supply Company (Tesco) an amount of Rs4.34bn, followed by Peshawar Electric’s Rs2.08bn, Gujranwala Rs1.97bn, Rs1.92bn by Hyderabad, Rs1.8bn by Multan Electric and Rs1bn by Islamabad Electric.

On the other hand, Faisalabad, Quetta and Sukkur Electric had sought a reduction of Rs58m, Rs786m and Rs897m, respectively.

The Discos struggled with providing complete data, the Nepra chief said the only job Discos were required to do was to sell electricity and recover its cost but appeared they were unable to do that properly. He said the power companies should not expect the regulator to be like their ATM with unlimited cash facility. “We are also answerable to the people who are struggling to finance utility bills,” he said.

Published in Dawn,June 16th, 2022