ISLAMABAD, June 24: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has decided to impose a new regulatory tax on power consumption to meet its running expenses.

To be called “Regulatory Levy Charge”, the new tax would be levied at a nominal rate of 0.125 per cent and which would become part of Wapda and KESC power tariff with effect from next month, Nepra sources told Dawn.

The Wapda sources also confirmed that the power regulator had informed about its decision to include the tax in the power bills.

All consumer groups, including domestic, commercial, industrial and agricultural, would be charged this levy.

The regulatory levy charge would be the sixth tax to be collected through power bills, including withholding tax, general sales tax, income tax etc.

The Wapda sources said that they had not included the new tax in their petition but being the authority, the Nepra exercised its prerogative to include the 0.125 per cent of the power cost in consumer bills.

Since the regulator has to be fully free from government allocations, it has, with the consent of the government and the World Bank, decided that there should be a permanent source of income to run the regulator, meet its day-to-day expenses and pay staff salaries, the Nepra sources said.

So far, the regulator has been relying on fees submitted by Wapda and KESC at the time of filing of various petitions and licence fees of the corporate companies of Wapda and small power producers.