Consumers have voiced concern over Nepra's (National Electric Power Regulatory Authority) decision of holding public hearing in Islamabad to discuss K-Electric's plea concerning monthly fuel adjustment charges (FAC). The public hearing is scheduled to be held on January 06 at Nepra's Tower at 11am.
"The decision to hold public hearing in Islamabad is neither `logical' nor `just' as the matter pertains to 2.2 million commercial and industrial consumers belonging to Karachi," remarked Consumers Association of Pakistan's chairman Kokab Iqbal. He said that not a single consumer of K-Electric will be able to go to Islamabad from Karachi to help resolve electricity-related issues because of time factor as well as due to heavy fares.
An electricity consumer, Anil Mumtaz, said that the regulatory body took this decision to avoid consumers' barrage of questions vis-à-vis K-E's performance. "Nepra should facilitate masses in getting their problems resolved, instead of shying away from them. It is obvious that consumers will cry if their rights were not assured. It is the foremost duty of the authority to address complaints of consumers," he opined.
Accusing Nepra officials of not taking interest in resolving the consumers' problems, he recalled that consumers had strongly protested the regulatory body members' move of holding a public hearing in Karachi on December 4 without possessing official stamp. Pasban's Abu Baker Usman said: "It seems that Nepra is supporting the K-E's petition, instead of assuring public rights."
"Though Nepra has been conducting public hearing on petitions of various discos in their respective cities for providing an opportunity to the affected consumers to register their verbal or written complaints, it was beyond my comprehension that why the regulatory authority chose to conduct KE's public hearings in Islamabad, he added. He said that the K-E's decision of reducing Rs 1.64 per unit on account of November's FAC was a meager amount as oil prices in the international market in last four months had been reduced by 54 per cent.