The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has allowed the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) to increase power tariff by 24 paisa per unit across the board. The KESC, under the monthly fuel adjustment and power purchase from other sources like NTDC and IPPs, had requested the regulator that its tariff should be increased by 25 paisa per unit.
The Authority on Monday conducted open hearing of tariff petition by the KESC and allowed increase only for the month of May which will be included in the bills of June. KESC sold 1.449 billion units electricity during May despite massive load shedding.
Pursuant to the amendments made in section 31(4) of the Regulation of Generation, Transmission and Distribution of Electric Power Act, 1997, through the Finance Act, 2008, Nepra is required to review the fuel charges on monthly basis and make changes if needed in the approved tariff on account of any variation in the fuel prices.
Further, the monthly adjustments on account of fuel cost variations is to be done in accordance with the monthly adjustment mechanism for KESC, determined by the Authority in case No Nepra/TRF-133/KESCL-2009(6) dated December 23, 2009 and duly notified by the GoP in SRO. No 11(1) 2010 dated January 01, 2010.
As per the mechanism, KESC is allowed monthly adjustment in fuel cost component for its own generation as well as power purchase cost from external sources on account of fuel price variation without taking into account the effect of transmission and distribution losses. The variation in cost is to be passed on to the consumers in their monthly bills as fuel cost adjustment. The Authority had recently allowed KESC to raise tariff by Rs 2.30 per unit across-the-board on the basis of three tariff adjustments.
According to quarterly tariff determination, tariff for January to March had been raised by Rs 1.94 per unit, whereas Rs 1.54 per unit increase in tariff has been made for March under the fuel adjustment formula, which works out to be Rs 3.48 per unit.
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