KARACHI, Nov 28: The power tariff relief recently announced by Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali is too meagre to reduce the electricity bill of a common consumer in any significant manner.

The federal cabinet, which met under the chairmanship of the prime minister on Nov 19, announced that power tariff for domestic consumers had been reduced by 4.42 paisas. The power tariff relief came into effect from Nov 1, 2003, despite the fact that according to a ruling by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority the tariff reduction should have been made effective from October. The power tariff would again be revised in December according to world oil prices.

KESC officials told Dawn on Monday that the power utility was working out reduction in various slabs of the power tariff schedule last revised on May 9. They added that a ballpark figure of decrease could be worked out.

“The power tariff is not applicable to commercial and industrial consumers. If a domestic power consumer receives a monthly bill of Rs2,500 he should expect a decrease of Rs25. The relief offered would vary from slab to slab,” they said.

The KESC officials pointed out that the reduction would range between 0.8 per cent and 2.2 per cent depending upon the number of electric units consumed. They said the power utility would also determine exactly how much it would lose because of the reduction in the electricity tariff.

Domestic consumers (category A1-R) using less than 50kWh pay Rs0.62 per kWh as energy charges, Rs0.79 per kWh as additional surcharge and Rs0.04 as electricity duty. The total rate per unit for a domestic consumer is Rs1.44.

Similarly, the domestic consumers using more than 1,000 kWh pay Rs1.88 as energy charges, Rs0.38 as fuel adjustment charges, Rs4.69 as additional surcharge and Rs0.11 as electricity duty. The total rate per unit for a domestic consumer is Rs7.06.

The KESC officials told Dawn that over the past 10 years the federal government had increased the tariff 13 times while it had decreased the tariff only three times.

“On Nov 4, 1993, the government increased the tariff by 28 paisas; on Dec 8, 1994 by 47 paisas; on Aug 6, 1995 by 38 paisas; on Oct 10, 1996 by 7 paisas; on April 27, 1997 by 47 paisas; on March 9, 1998 by 76 paisas; on Nov 4, 2000 by 10 paisas; on March 27, 2001 by 22 paisas; on Nov 30, 2001 by 12 paisas; on Sept 13, 2002 by 30 paisas and on May 9, 2003 by 14 paisas.”

They said: “The reductions offered by the federal government are as under: on Sept 16, 1999 by 6 paisas; on Feb 16, 2002 by 12 paisas and on Dec 10, 2002 by 5 paisas.”

The KESC said it was clear that over the past 10 years the power tariff had been increased by 331 paisas and decreased by 23 paisas.

“It is evident that the average increase in tariff during the first six years was 243 paisas per kWh and in the last four years the increase was 65 paisas per kWh, resulting an additional revenue of Rs5.9 billion. On the other hand, the KESC had to bear an additional cost of Rs38.3 billion on account of increase in fuel prices during the past four years,” they explained.