Nepra rejects KE’s demand for increasing power tariff

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Thursday while rejecting the demand of K-Electric to increase its power tariff by 14.3 paisa, concluded that it shall decrease its tariff for the consumers on the basis of K-Electric own declining generation cost and taking around 650 Megawatts from National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) for years at lower price.

Chairman Nepra Brig (R) Tariq Saddozi who presided over the authority’s public hearing Thursday regarding fuel charges adjustment for K-E for month of May expressed his anger and serious concern over the company’s non-serious and inefficient performance as Karachi is facing severe power crisis but it did nothing.

He said that the for the last 30 hours almost every part of the city is without power, despite Nepra’s continuous warnings to the company to create more generation capacity and improve its transmission and distribution system.  

A senior official of the authority told The News that the K-Electric is still enjoying the 600MWs which it takes from the national grid while not fully exploiting its available generation capacity despite during its privatisation, it had agreed to generate its own power to feed Karachi, but, unfortunately, still it has made no progress on it and is depending on this borrowed power. 

The official said, “The K-Electric demand of increasing tariff is unjustified, however the authority will soon complete its working on its generation cost and borrowed electricity and will decided to lower the tariff for the month of May 2016.” He said that the authority may decline the tariff for month of May 2016 by 8 paisa/unit.