ISLAMABAD, July 15: The government has persuaded the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) into giving post-facto approval to a whopping 11.4 cents per unit overall tariff for three existing Independent Power Producers (IPPs). The three IPPs have agreed to come up with projects which would increase the thermal power generation capacity by 460MW.

In a related development, Nepra has been further obligated to increase its tariff by more than 10 per cent for a new 141MW wind power project through a majority vote, which forced a Nepra member to write a dissenting note.

In case of the three existing thermal IPPs, Nepra noted that ‘(considering the) inconvenience to the public and consequent disturbances in the streets, it is considered prudent by the authority not to disturb the finality of the process through a review’ in view of the ‘massive load shedding in the country’.

Nepra, however, placed on record that the Private Power and Infrastructure Board (PPIB) had been asked to provide certain information and confirmations regarding the bidding process on the basis of which the tariff was cleared by the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC).

On a proposal of the PPIB, the ECC had approved 11.38 cents (Rs6.83) per unit tariff for the 156MW Japan Power, 161MW Tapal Energy and 143MW Kohinoor Energy. The ECC also allowed commissioning of these projects within the first quarter of 2009 instead of October 2008.

The PPIB had informed the ECC that once the tariff was decided through competitive bidding, it should not be subjected to further reviews by Nepra. Sources in Nepra, however, said that guidelines stipulated that competitive bidding for tariffs should be held under it. In this case, since Nepra was not involved in the bidding process, it had to accept the tariff as approved by the ECC due to the massive loadshedding. As a result, it said the prudence review by Nepra was liable to delay “the advent of critically required additional generation capacity in the country and would therefore not be in the public interest”.