Power Division asks Discos to recover FCA relief amount from ‘unprotected’ consumers

LAHORE: The Power Division (PD) has instructed all the distribution companies (Discos) to charge Rs22 billion Fuel Charge Adjustment (FCA) relief of 17.1 million protected consumers from the rest of the 12.9 million unprotected consumers, said reliable sources.

They said the PD has issued written instructions to all the Discos and KE for collection of this amount from unprotected consumers within a period of next six months. It may be noted that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced a relief package during his visit to Qatar, exempting the households that consume electricity up to 200 units from the FCA.

Federal Finance Minister Miftah Ismail had also pointed out in his Friday’s press conference that the relief was announced after taking the International Monetary Fund (IMF) into confidence. However, he had not explained as to how the government has satisfied the IMF as the government has not treated it as a subsidy so far.

The sources said the government could not leave this amount unattended, as the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) had declared it as ‘legitimate expense’ in its working in collaboration with Central Power Purchasing Agency (Guarantee) Limited (CPPA-G). Neither the federal minister for energy has termed it as a wrong working nor are the Discos directed to book it as their expenditure.

Meanwhile, some other sources from the federal government termed it a political exercise ahead of the upcoming by polls where Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chief Imran Khan is contesting solely against the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) candidates. They said the government has taken steps to appease their poorest of the poor voters in respective constituencies. They also referred to a notice by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) to PML-N leader and the party’s candidate for by-polls in the NA-108, Faisalabad, Abid Sher Ali, for violating the code of conduct. He managed to make announcements in the mosques of his constituency about the removal of FCA in the electricity bills by the federal government, claiming it as his endeavour in the larger interest of his voters.

By doing so, said the ECP, he has allegedly violated the para 42 of the ECP’s electoral code of conduct, which says: “political parties, candidates, their supporters, local government functionaries or elected representative, shall not announce or inaugurate, openly or in secret, their overall development schemes or development work or do anything which tends to influence the results of an election in favour of or against a particular candidate of political party after the announcement of election programme till the day of polling”. Interestingly, sources have also told this scribe that special instructions have been passed to Discos to market the initiative which was followed by holding of an emergency press conference by the Lesco chief on Friday afternoon.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022