The much-trumpeted relief of 58 paisa per unit in power tariff for industrial sector has turned out to be a cruel joke. Going by the revised tariff issued by Wapda, only 1000 industrial units in the country will get relief of 58 paisa per unit, while about 200,000 industrial consumers will get a meagre cut of only 10 paisa per unit.
The budget announcement claimed lower tariff would help cut down in cost of production. But the revised tariff shows Wapda has restricted this concession to only those units, which remain functional during peak hours.
According to a Wapda report, hardly one percent of industries fall in this category. It may be mentioned that to discourage operation of industrial units during peak hours, Wapda has enhanced power rates by Rs 2 per unit. One electricity unit, which costs Rs 4.76 in normal hours, goes up to Rs 6.01 for peak hours.
It is interesting to note that 99 percent of industrial units, which fall in other category and do not function during peak hours, get a relief of 10 paisa per unit.
Following the announcement, Wapda has issued revised tariff rates for the industrial sector. The announcement said that reduction of 58 paisa per unit would be available for those industrial units, which use electricity during peak hours and fall in B-2 and B-3 categories.
Before going into other details such as impact of the reduction of 58 paisa per unit on overall industrial production and how industrial sector's cost of production can be reduced to make its products competitive in local and international market by just cutting down power rates of those units which use electricity during peak hours it would be fair to go through Wapda's April 4 statement.
The statement made available to Business Recorder confirms that only 134 industrial units in B-2 and 23 in B-3 would take benefit of 58 paisa relief whereas 186, 803 industrial consumers in B-1and 20,572 industrial consumers do not qualify for the relief. Industrial consumers falling in categories B-1 and B-2 can only get 10 paisa relief which of course does not count to bring industrial products cost down.
It may be appropriate to mention here that amid big applause of the Members of Parliament (MPs), Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz had announced reduction of 58 paisa in power tariff for industrial sector in his budget speech. He called it a revolutionary measure towards bringing down input cost of industrial sector and help it become competitive in the domestic and international market.
Industrial sector had no reason to believe that reduction of 58 paisa in power tariff was for all categories especially for B-1 and B-2 units, which make 99.99 percent of the total industries. But Wapda's announcement stunned the industrialists.
Islamabad-based industrialists Khalid Javed of Ittehad Steel Industries, Akram Farid of Pak Steel Industries, Shaukat Masud of Fazal Group of Industries are yet to believe that budgetary announcement for 58 paisa relief in power tariff does not cover the whole industrial categories.
Comments
Comments are closed.