Sindh

HESCO withdraws GST for suppliers

Measure is likely to bring benefit to consumers who have to pay the infrastructure cost to builders and developers

Z Ali December 08, 2022

K-Electric, in its tariff adjustment requests, said that it dispatched electricity as per the economic merit order from its own generation units and through imports from the external sources. Photo: file

HYDERABAD:

The Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO) has withdrawn general sales tax levied recently on the 11KV distribution materials including pole mounted transformers, conductors, cables, meters, steel structures, insulators and connectors, which were revised recently.

Less than a week after adding the 17% GST on a list containing 65 items, the HESCO notified the withdrawal.

The measure is likely to bring benefit to consumers who have to pay the infrastructure cost to builders and developers.

The company's spokesman Sadiq Kubar told The Express Tribune that the rates were revised on November 29 after a long span. "The companies supplying materials to HESCO had jacked up the prices of their items due to the depreciation of Pakistani rupee against dollar."

As per the revised rates, the consumers will have to pay Rs619,081, including 12% storage charges, for a 25KVA transformer. Similarly, The new prices of the 50KVA, 100KVA and 200KVA transformers have been raised to Rs932,670, Rs1.46 million and Rs2.267 million, respectively.

For the 50mm aerial bundle cable (ABC) the company will charge Rs1.05 million per kilometer while the price of 70mm ABC will be Rs1.689. The consumers will have to pay Rs22,394 for a three-phase static meter and Rs5,404 for the single-phase static meter.

The benefit of the tax withdrawal will save the consumers from as low as Rs4 and as high as Rs358,700 per item.

The power utility took the decision after Hyderabad's business community wrote a letter last week to the Federal Power Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan pointing out the issue.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 8^th, 2022.