The government has announced a 15% or Rs7.41 per unit reduction in electricity prices under seasonal tariff adjustments. This move is aimed at boosting consumption from the national grid and providing some relief to financially struggling households. The benefit reportedly covers about 40.3 million consumers, primarily 35 million residential users.
However, this reduction comes at the cost of another long-promised relief — a cut in fuel prices, which are normally adjusted biweekly based on international markets. For the entire month, no such adjustment has been made, with the government stating that the benefit would instead be reflected in electricity bills. But that hasn’t fully materialised.
Initially, the public was told that electricity prices would drop by Rs10 to Rs15 per unit due to renegotiated terms with Independent Power Producers (IPPs), which were expected to reduce their profit margins. Instead of taking a hit, IPPs have been granted relief, and the anticipated benefits from declining fuel prices are being redirected into the electricity tariff reduction. This raises two concerns:
Consumers are being shortchanged — the benefit of falling oil prices is not reflected at fuel stations.
Electricity and fuel relief are being wrongly bundled together, even though they serve different sets of users. More than 50 million people rely on fuel daily, and they deserve separate and direct relief.
The government must ensure that the benefits of international price changes are transparently and fairly passed on — both in fuel prices and electricity tariffs — without trading one off for the other.
SM Arif
Karachi
