KARACHI, Dec 8: As the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has admitted that it has overtaxed electricity consumers of the country’s largest metropolis, Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) consumers are waiting to be compensated or reimbursed for the money charged extra from them. However, the KESC is still non-committal on the issue whose spokesman said it is “legally time-barred” and non-applicable now.
Nepra had allowed an increase in tariff on the basis of fuel adjustment charges and operation and maintenance expenses to Rs2.79 per kilowatt vide letter number Nepra/TRF-133/KESC-2009/5017-5020 June 30, 2010.
In this letter they allowed KESC the increase. But Nepra now has said that when they were determining this tariff they inadvertently made a mistake.They allowed Rs3.33 increase from one unit to 100 units for consumers, but it was meant for all categories from July 2009 to March 2012.
Instead of Rs2.79 then for over 100 units, they allowed an increase of Rs3.19.
For all this they issued a corrigendum on Nov 26, 2012, admitting that they had made a mistake which should be reversed now.
Because of the error, electricity consumers had to pay Rs4.2 billion for every year.
The secretary general of the KESC Shareholders, Chaudhry Mazhar Ali, said: “In 2009, the mistake in tariff increase cost an increase of 54 paisa per unit to KESC consumers. In 2010, it was a 40 paisa increase in tariff. In 2011, it was a 45 paisa increase in the payment made by consumers.”
“Meanwhile,” he pointed out, “there was no increase in the tariff of industrial and commercial consumers. As for the agriculture consumers, they were benefited due to the error by 12 paisa per unit for the three years.”
So overall, over the past three years, an excess of Rs12.4 billion was paid by consumers of Karachi due to the Nepra error, he said. “Now Nepra has directed the KESC to refund or adjust consumers on account of this error.”
Mr Ali added: “In 2009, the KESC billed Karachi consumers, who happen to be around two million in numbers, for 9,000 megawatt. Their monthly recovery for that year was Rs7.5 billion. In 2010, they recovered Rs9 billion per month while billing the consumers for 9.9 thousand megawatt per month. In 2011, 10.5 thousand megawatts were sold with a monthly recovery of Rs11.4 billion.
“In these three years, they got subsidy from the government of Pakistan too. In 2009, it was Rs27 billion, in 2010, it was Rs44 billion, in 2011 they got Rs70 billion. And in the first quarter of 2012 it was Rs45 billion. So from July 2009 to March 2012, they received Rs186 billion in subsidies.
“But the KESC have objected to the Nepra decision of asking for a compensation on the grounds that power regulatory authority has not issued a notice to the KESC as is required by their Rule 23 of 1998 which states: ‘No proceedings of the authority shall be invalid by reason of any defect or irregularity unless the authority issues a notice to the distribution company for explanation of the sale’.”
The KESC through a letter issued to Nepra (dated Dec 3) by their director of legal affairs J.S. Haroun had threatened to go to court, calling their decision “time-barred”. Mr Ali pointed out: “But this matter is not about any defect or any irregularity. This is actually a rectification of a mistake of numeral working. As such there is no notice required to be given to the company. My own apprehension is this that the KESC, instead of adjusting the excess amount received from consumers, will go in litigation and may prolong the matter in court. That is how it may keep consumers from getting anything as court battles are known to go on for years.
“I, therefore, request the chief justice of Sindh and the chief justice of Pakistan to intervene in the matter for providing justice to citizens of Karachi,” he concluded.