LAHORE, July 19: The tariff increase would fetch Wapda Rs18.8 billion only against its total deficit of Rs31 billion during the last fiscal 2001-02, authority chief Zulfiqar Ali Khan told a news conference here on Friday.

About further increase to meet the deficit, Khan said Wapda would not ask for any hike if prices of inputs — furnace oil and natural gas — didn’t go up during the current fiscal. “But if they do, Wapda would be forced to demand an increase.”

The chairman said he realised difficulties of the masses but the authority had no other option when cost of inputs kept increasing. He admitted that tariff hike would encourage power theft.

The finance minister, he said, in his budget speech had announced that the government would earn about Rs40 billion in tax from petroleum products. “Wapda is the largest consumer of petroleum products in the country and will share the major burden of this earning.”

The price of crude oil, he claimed, had not fluctuated in the world market for the last many months. But, the price of furnace oil had increased by around 25 per cent in Pakistan. “One way of brining down the electricity tariff is for the government to reduce the amount of duties on the petroleum prices.”

He said Wapda had listed many ways to bring down the electricity prices but all proposals had fallen on deaf ears. One of them was to supply natural gas to it at the rate given to the fertilizer industry because Wapda consumed more than 37 per cent of the total gas of the country. Now the authorities concerned have promised to do the needful by December 2003. He said in 1999-2000 the authority got 417 MMCFD gas, in 2000-01 the supply was reduced to 403 MMCFD and in 2001-02 the authority got 398 MMCFD only.

Khan said if Wapda started importing furnace oil directly, it would save Rs1.2 billion that could obviously bring down tariff. He said the government had imposed a duty of $4.555 per tonne on import of furnace oil directly.

To a question that Wapda was covering its losses from the Punjab as the KESC, the FATA, the AJ&K and Balochistan farm consumers were not paying their bills, the chairman said that the issue was discussed with the government but the authority was told to continue supply of electricity to the areas because of official social obligations.

“A federation is a mix of different people and it would be wrong to look at issues from narrow perspectives.” He said the gas was produced in Balochistan, Sindh produced coal and hydel projects were in the NWFP, so every province was giving something to other.

Earlier, the chairman claimed that the authority had faced an additional burden of Rs81.352 billion due to increase in fuel cost. Out of which around Rs20 billion were covered through tariff increases, while Rs62.814 billion deficit was yet to be covered.

Comparing Wapda with other utilities and sectors, he said electricity cost from June 30, 1999, to June 30, 2002, had risen by 16.4 per cent only, while the PIA fares went up by almost 55.09 per cent, railways by 81.8 per cent, postage rates by 100 per cent, gas tariff by 104.49 per cent, furnace oil by 132.5 per cent and telephone line rent by 81.25 per cent.

In 1999-00, Rs54.2 billion were paid to the IPPs against the purchase of 17.9 billion units, Rs 85.8 billion in 2000-01 against 24.4 billion units and Rs 109.2 billion paid against the purchase of 23.2 billion units during 2001-02.

The chairman claimed that army administration had brought down system losses down to 25 per cent from 42 per cent in the last three years and increased revenue to Rs 186.3 billion, while the number of consumers also increased from 12.4 million to 12.7 million.