Nepra slaps Rs1mln in penalty on CPPA

ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) on Monday slapped yet another one million rupees in fine on the electricity buying agency for delaying the benefits on monthly fuel charges adjustment to the consumers.

Nepra imposed the penalty on the state-owned Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) due to its non-compliance to the authority’s directives and for not submitting data about February’s electricity purchase.

“CPPA, by deliberately delaying the information, denied consumers their legitimate benefit of negative fuel charges adjustment (FCA) of Rs.2.1501/kWh (kilowatt-hour) i.e. around six billion rupees, pertaining to February 2017, to be passed on in their monthly bills of April 2017,” the authority said in a statement. “The said benefit was, however, provided to the consumers after delay of one month i.e. in May 2017.”

The fine was imposed under Nepra (Fines) Rules 2002.

In November, Nepra imposed one million rupees in fine on the CPPA for taking in electricity without signing a formal buying agreement with the producer and maneuvering tariffs. The officials said the CPPA and Peshawar Electric Supply Company had been taking electricity from a hydropower project for the past seven years without signing power purchase agreement, while the buying tariffs were four-time below what Nepra determined.

The authority, under the Regulation of Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power Act 1997, is required to make adjustments in the approved tariff on account of variations in fuel charges within a period of seven days on monthly basis. CPPA is required to submit the requisite details by 3rd of each month and thereafter a hearing is conducted subsequent to which necessary adjustments in the reference tariff are made. Nepra issued instructions to CPPA to submit the requisite information detail for February without further delay, considering the period of seven days and the direction/decision of the Lahore High Court.

But, CPPA did not submit the requisite information and thus violated the explicit directions of the authority. The power buying agency submitted the information in April.