THE Senate Standing Committee on Power must be appreciated for its consistent efforts in highlighting the issues and challenges facing the country’s power sector including urgency to provide much-needed relief to consumers through tariff reduction.
The latest briefing given by the top officials of the Ministry to the Senate panel revealed that despite assurances made on several occasions by the top leadership, the government has no serious plan to reduce the tariff and instead the prices might go up further if proposal to bring the much-talked-about circular debt to zero is materialized envisaging repayment of a bank loan for the purpose by the end consumer.
There are reasons to believe that public statements of the government leaders and the official position on the issue of tariff reduction are not aligned as the Committee was informed that savings (amounting to Rs. 1.571 trillion) will be passed on to the consumers through changes in agreements and tariffs over the contracting period, meaning thereby that there will be no immediate relief for the consumers who have been waiting anxiously for months for such an announcement by the government.
Minister for Power Sardar Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari was more diplomatic on the issue as he claimed that electricity rates had already dropped by Rs4.11 per unit since June 2024 and more substantial tariff reductions were expected.
The reduction that the Minister is referring to has no relevance to the general consumer as the benefit of the reduced tariff will accrue only in cases where benchmark consumption is the higher of the relevant month’s consumption in 2024 or the historical consumption over the past three years.
The plan is not motivated by the desire to provide relief to the consumer but a ploy to sell surplus electricity during lean months of winter.
It is quite evident that the government has no active plan to lower the tariff and the media is mis-fed (like the report that says the tariff might be reduced by Rs.6 to 8 per unit in two months) to keep hopes alive.
However, the issue is quite serious with far-reaching implications for socio-economic lives of the people that it cannot be brushed aside through rhetoric and the government will have to revise the tariff substantially down in the interests of consumers and the national economy.
