National Electric Power Regulatory Authority, Nepra's allegedly indifferent attitude towards consumers lead to heated arguments among the stakeholders, forcing the authority to adjourn the public hearing for indefinite period.
K-Electric in last February had submitted a plea before Nepra requesting the authority of approval for increase of Rs 1.39/unit, for the month of January 2014 as fuel prices variation charges, decrease of 4 paisa in the monthly bill of December 2013, and increase of 48 paisa for the month of November 2013 on account of fuel variation charges, for which the regulatory body had called a public hearing on Monday (yesterday) at a hotel in the metropolis.
Acting Chairman Nepra. Khwaja Muhammad Naeem, and Habibullah Khilji were representing the authority while K-Electric Director Accounts, Amir Ghaziani was representing the utility and a large number of consumers and their representatives were also present in this hearing.
Amir Ghaziani gave a submission of all three months, saying that this request was made due to oil price variations (increase in generation cost) during the said months. He gave a comprehensive briefing about total K-Electric generation from furnace oil, gas and total purchase from NTDC. He explained about K-Electric's mandatory load shedding policy which is mainly done in such areas where a large scale of electricity theft is being committed.
In the meantime Khwaja Naeem, objected on this stance saying that K-Electric was deliberately not generating electricity to its full capacity and it has purchased much electricity from NTDC. He also charged of the intentional load shedding carried out by K-Electric during the winter season. K-Electric's request for the increase of fuel adjustments charges was rejected by the public. They urged the regulatory authority to launch the proper audit of the company before fulfilling any demand. They also urged NEPRA to take stern action against K-Electric for carrying out long load shedding in the winter season.
"Under the head of fuel adjustment charges K-electric has been collecting billions of rupees annually form the government but has failed to generating electricity with its full capacity," said AK Zaidi a share holder. Orangzaib Ilahi, a consumer, said "Although regulatory authority has ordered K-Electric not to collect bill collection charges of Rs 8 form its consumers, but K-electric is consistently taking this amount from 2.5 million consumers completely violating Nepra's rules. The authority seems toothless to implement its own decisions, Nepra should have imposed penalty on the utility for disobeying the decisions," he added.
Acting Chairman Naveed invited objections in connection with the increase in fuel adjustment charges. The first intervener, Chaudhry Mazhar, said that "a party which is neither carrying out orders of Nepra nor acting upon the decisions of authority has no right to submit a petition for increasing electricity prices." Acting Chairman Nepra objected on the words the intervener used and asked him not to discus irrelevant meters.
Reacting on this Mazhar Ali said "[you always favour K-Electric but never favour the public". Mazhar Ali read a poetic couplet "O my friend! We will close our eyes for the time being, and in the mean time you swindle the people." This created a heated discussion between the intervener and chairman and other members of Nepra.
Another intervener Anil Mumtaz supported the stance of Mazhar Ali, and blamed Nepra for not efforts to resolve the grievances of people He said "it is the legal right of a consumer to raise his objections in public hearing, and being a public servant you must listen him properly and resolve his reasonable demands."
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