AGL 40.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.16 (-0.4%)
AIRLINK 129.53 Decreased By ▼ -2.20 (-1.67%)
BOP 6.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.15%)
CNERGY 4.63 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (3.58%)
DCL 8.94 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.36%)
DFML 41.69 Increased By ▲ 1.08 (2.66%)
DGKC 83.77 Decreased By ▼ -0.31 (-0.37%)
FCCL 32.77 Increased By ▲ 0.43 (1.33%)
FFBL 75.47 Increased By ▲ 6.86 (10%)
FFL 11.47 Increased By ▲ 0.12 (1.06%)
HUBC 110.55 Decreased By ▼ -1.21 (-1.08%)
HUMNL 14.56 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (1.75%)
KEL 5.39 Increased By ▲ 0.17 (3.26%)
KOSM 8.40 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-6.46%)
MLCF 39.79 Increased By ▲ 0.36 (0.91%)
NBP 60.29 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
OGDC 199.66 Increased By ▲ 4.72 (2.42%)
PAEL 26.65 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.15%)
PIBTL 7.66 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (2.41%)
PPL 157.92 Increased By ▲ 2.15 (1.38%)
PRL 26.73 Increased By ▲ 0.05 (0.19%)
PTC 18.46 Increased By ▲ 0.16 (0.87%)
SEARL 82.44 Decreased By ▼ -0.58 (-0.7%)
TELE 8.31 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.97%)
TOMCL 34.51 Decreased By ▼ -0.04 (-0.12%)
TPLP 9.06 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (2.84%)
TREET 17.47 Increased By ▲ 0.77 (4.61%)
TRG 61.32 Decreased By ▼ -1.13 (-1.81%)
UNITY 27.43 Decreased By ▼ -0.01 (-0.04%)
WTL 1.38 Increased By ▲ 0.10 (7.81%)
BR100 10,407 Increased By 220 (2.16%)
BR30 31,713 Increased By 377.1 (1.2%)
KSE100 97,328 Increased By 1781.9 (1.86%)
KSE30 30,192 Increased By 614.4 (2.08%)

LAHORE: Non-poor households receive comparatively larger electricity subsidy benefits than poor households; therefore the government has decided to generate fiscal savings by cutting the subsidy and making transfer to poor households to give subsidies through Ehsaas programme, said sources.

According to the sources, broad-based electricity subsidy was not the right policy for serving the best purposes of poor households. Pakistan spends substantial amount of resources in electricity subsidies which aggravate budget deficit and crowd out priority sector spending. The federal government has cut the power subsidies by Rs 81 billion or 36% in the budget and it has allocated only Rs 150 billion for power subsidies this year as against last fiscal year’s allocation of Rs 226 billion. Accordingly, all types of households are likely to get hurt in the medium term from subsidy reductions. However, the sources said, when savings from subsidy reduction would be distributed among poor households, recipient households would experience comparative improvement in real income and welfare.

The sources said there is no doubt that cutting energy subsidies hurts both poor and non-poor households but poor households would be better off when targeted transfers are made to them. They added that the government is in the process of finalizing amendments to the National Electric Power Regularity Authority (NEPRA) to put in place a new mechanism for subsidies while eliminating the present mechanism of providing electricity subsidies up to 300 units per month consumption, irrespective of income levels. They said the government is planning to utilize the facility of Ehsaas programme for a direct intervention in order to reduce poverty and supporting the baseline consumers.

Proponents of energy subsidies claim that broad-based subsidies benefits poor households, who otherwise could not consume fuel and electricity at higher prices. However, the Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) sources said substantial part of broad-based subsidy benefits are captured by non-poor households. Moreover, they said, energy subsidies are crowding out priority sector public spending and aggravating fiscal imbalances.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020

Comments

Comments are closed.