According to the sources, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) meeting was presided over by Finance Minister Miftah Ismail who approved a total of Rs 177 billion supplementary grants, comprising Rs 37 billion payment to K-Electric for the tariff differential subsidy (TDS) while Rs 96 billion to 11 independent power producers (IPPs) set up.
“The ECC approved tariff rationalization for K-Electric by way of adjustments of increase Rs 0.571 per unit with a recovery period of three months,” an official announcement said.
Read more: ECC approves Rs 135 billion for second installment to IPPs
Besides, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) was ordered to issue a revised schedule of tariff (SOT) for October-December 2021 or include it in the recent schedule of tariff for the Jan-March quarter after incorporating tariff rationalization.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Energy’s Power Division presented a summary of the notification of quarterly tariff adjustments (QTAs) of K-Electric from July 2016 to March 2020 and the related financial impact of Rs 90 billion.
Nepra, however, expressed its inability, remarking it had accomplished its process of tariff determinations and now it was up to the government under the law to levy a tariff surcharge on customers to recover the amount or take it over as a subsidy.
The Power Division proposed that Rs 24 billion should be recovered from KE users through an Rs 1.45 per unit surcharge in one year as similar payments from consumers of distribution companies (Discos) had been retrieved.
Moreover, the ECC meeting also allowed the release of Rs 17 billion in the present fiscal year as investment in former Wapda Discos for the payment to RLNG-based public power plants (Haveli Bahadur Shah, Bhikki, and Balloki) to fulfill their cash requirements.
The ECC meeting also gave a nod to the payment of Rs 96 billion to 11 IPPs established under the 2002 power policy whose final settlement of tariff renegotiations had been hampered by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) investigations.
