Federal Minister for Power Sardar Owais Ahmed Khan Leghari said the incumbent government has no intention to impose taxes on imported solar panels as it seeks to encourage the renewable energy sector.

“Although a number of proposals were made to impose tax on the import of solar panels, however, the Prime Minister refused it completely. Our policy is not to tax import of solar panels (but) to encourage it further,” he said.

Nepra concerned at drop in power consumption

The remarks from the federal minister were made in a video message on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter) uploaded on Thursday. In the video, Leghari discussed the problems of the country’s complex power sector and the plans of the current government to deal with them.

He said that owing to high energy prices, a number of agricultural tube wells were shifted to solar energy. “We are optimistic that as electricity rate declines, they will switch to the national system.”

The Federal Minister of Energy informed that the government is purchasing expensive electricity from 125,000 net-metering consumers. “However, we want to give them this incentive to encourage growth in solar energy sector,” he said.

Rising electricity rates have become a significant challenge for the incumbent government.

Last month, the federal government announced an increase in electricity prices of up to Rs7.12 per unit for domestic consumers, raising the base tariff from Rs29.78/KWh in FY24 to Rs35.50/KWh in FY25 to comply with International Monetary Fund (IMF) requirements.

Solar PV panels: Duties on plant, machinery and raw material to go away

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif recently introduced a Rs50-billion energy subsidy package for low-income households consuming up to 200 units from July to September 2024. However, experts warned that this may be insufficient, as mounting public discontent could lead to civil unrest.