opposition managed to get clause 40 rejected by the House.
The Amendment Bill in the Electric Power Act, 1997 has been passed in pursuance of the CCI decision in 2013. In 2013, the CCI approved the National Power Policy of 2013, laying down key components of a development strategy for achieving an efficient, competitive and sustainable power sector in Pakistan.
The statement of objects and reasons of the bill says the Policy not only affirms the resolve of the Federal Government to “limit its role to policy making” and to ensure that “unless necessary, service delivery will be promoted through a fiercely competitive and transparent private sector”, it also approves the strengthening of NEPRA as “a world class regulatory authority with sophisticated and efficient capacity to establish tariffs and set the foundation for a competitive bidding process”.
For the first time the amendment will give the Nepra power to make regulations. Many areas of regulation are presently required to be prescribed through rules, which require federal government’s approval. However, with the passage of the proposed amendments, most regulated areas will fall within the sole domain of Nepra, to be administered by regulations developed through a process of public consultation. These amendments are bound to increase the scope of the regulated sector, an enhanced regulatory capacity has also been proposed for Nepra. With enhanced powers of enforcement and broadened regulatory scope, proposals for ensuring accountability of regulatory decisions have also been included in the amendments.
Introduction of an Appellate Tribunal comprising two technical members, chaired by a former high court judge, is also the main feature of the Bill. To assure its independence, the tribunal will have a separate fund, and be empowered to seek external expert opinions, be they national or international.
For the sake of efficiency, the decisions of the tribunal would be time bound, so that the problems associated with more than one thousand pending litigations in the sector are effectively mitigated in a timely manner. Moreover, to maintain regulatory independence, if an appeal is in relation to a tariff setting determination of Nepra, the Appellate Tribunal will be unable to substitute the determination of Nepra, and instead, remand the matter back to the Authority with guidelines.