In an exciting development, Federal Minister for Power Awais Leghari on Wednesday announced good news of reduction in taxes for certain electricity consumers.
According to details, the reduced electricity bills initiative will be introduced for agricultural tube wells and consumers using upto 300 units of electricity.
The reduction in electricity bills will be through alteration in fuel price adjustment (FPA) in the electricity bills. It merits a mention that the reduced FPA taxes was already in place for consumer until 2015 when it was abolished.
Similarly, the reduced FPA taxes in electricity bills for agricultural tube wells scheme was active until it was terminated in 2010.
Regarding this initiative, the power division has written a letter to NEPRA. Through the reduction in fuel cost to agricultural tube wells and electricity consumers using units up to 300 units, their monthly electricity bills will be further reduced.
Leghari recently revealed that government has vowed to provide uninterrupted power supply during sehri and iftar hours throughout Ramadan including those areas where electricity theft is rampant.
During a recent Senate Standing Committee on Power meeting, the senators were apprised about the progress in renegotiation of contracts with independent power producers (IPPs).
Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Power Muhammad Ali revealed that six IPPs had terminated their contract with Pakistan. It was also revealed that the government is negotiating with IPPs to change their payment methods into local currency instead of dollars.
“60 to 70 billion rupees were being paid to the IPPs that were terminated. We were paying these 6 IPPs in dollars. We fixed the payment to the IPPs at the rate of 168 rupees per dollar,” he added.
Advisor Muhammad Ali also claimed that the government had saved around Rs700 billion after renegotiating with IPPs. Apart from that, they also continue to negotiate with government power plants in order to reduce the bloated circular debt.
The current circular debt stands at Rs2300 billion.
