ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Thursday passed an amendment in the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) Act of 1997 for automatic notification of fuel adjustment in the power tariff on monthly basis soon after its determination by the regulator.

The amendment in the bill that has to be cleared by the Senate before becoming a law, also seeks to strengthen Nepra’s powers to regulate Karachi Electric Supply Company.

Under the existing procedure, the Nepra has to determine monthly revision in electricity tariff on the basis of variation of fuel cost but has to send it to the government for notification before distribution companies of Wapda and KESC could make such changes in the tariff.

Until recent past, the government has been notifying such fuel based variations in tariff on monthly basis through presidential notifications.

The government has been under pressure from the international lending agencies to empower Nepra by law so that it could itself notify variation in monthly fuel charges at its own soon after determination, without waiting for government approval.

Under another amendment in the Nepra act, the government has changed the qualification of the Nepra chairman by adding public administration or management to widen the scope of eligibility of the chairman.

Earlier, the chairman was required to be “eminent professional of known integrity and competence with at least 20 years of related experience in law, business, engineering, finance, accounting, economics, the electric utility companies,” which has now been extended to public administration and management as well.

According to yet another amendment to deal with KESC, Nepra has been empowered to impose a fine of Rs100 million on a utility for violation of its responsibilities as a licencee, with an additional fine of Rs500,000 per day in case of failure to pay the imposed principal penalty.

Earlier, the Nepra could impose a fine of only Rs300,000 with no specific additional penalty on non-payment.

Practically, the utilities used to violate the licenced responsibility and love to pay a meager penalty of Rs300,000 and commit the violation again and again.

To strengthen the regulatory mechanism of Nepra, a monitoring cell has been created to monitor compliance with the act, rules, regulations and terms and conditions of the licencees and applicable documents to include any ministry, division or department of the federal or provincial government.

Under the existing law, the Nepra cannot delegate powers to review its orders but it can itself review its decision.

To remove ambiguity, explicit power has been given to the Nepra.

A new sub section has been suggested after section 11 and 38 of the Nepra act to give right of appeal before the Nepra authority against the decision of single Nepra member, or any order of the provincial office of inspection or tribunal.

This will provide a legal remedy to the complainant to file an appeal before the authority.