Get hydel profits: Govt summons allies, opposition to deliver decisive blow

Will press Centre to fork out larger share based on new division rates

PESHAWAR: With both Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz coming into power over two years ago, it seemed the perennial issue of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s incomplete slice of the net hydel profits cake might just inch towards a solution.

Little progress was made despite innumerable deliberations on both sides. It seems the K-P government has given in to the frustration and summoned its allies and opposition parties to go for PML-N’s jugular. Government officials and members of opposition parties told The Express Tribune the meeting will be held on Monday.

“The aim is to force National Electric Power Regulatory Authority to ink the MoU to account the NHPs at Rs1.1 per kWh,” a government official said. He added with this change, K-P’s share of Rs6 billion at Rs0.45 per kWh will swell to Rs18 billion.



“If they do not give in, K-P will opt for agitation,” he said. Assuming things will go smooth, the K-P government has already made a provision of Rs17 billion in terms of non-tax receipts in the ongoing year’s budget. In layman terms, if the Centre does not entertain the demand, K-P will fall short of a good amount of money needed to fodder its machinery.

Humbled

The official added in 2013, K-P was asking no less than Rs2.58 per kWh but then retracted to Rs1.10. “If indexation rates are applied at 5.5% since 2013, then our share stands at Rs1.22 per kWh. The value was set by a technical committee of federal government on March 16, 2013 and Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif approved the recommendations on March 16, 2015.” He said although the Centre agrees that it has yet to pay up K-P’s NHP arrears, it does not put words into practice.

Meanwhile, Water and Power Development Authority has already filed a petition with Nepra for the revision of hydroelectric tariffs and the federal body has fixed a public hearing for September 8. In the petition demanding increase in tariffs, Wapda has cited K-P’s demands for uncapping rates of NHPs, saying, “It is decided that the NHP rate shall be Rs1.10 per kWh approved with effect from the next financial year.”

“K-P government is preparing itself for the hearing where the Centre is expected to hide behind the fact that the tariff increase will impact the poor,” the official said.

Referring to the benefits other provinces will receive, he said Punjab has also claimed its share and if the new rates are applied, both Punjab and Azad Jammu and Kashmir will start receiving Rs8 billion respectively. “If Nepra can do it for solar and thermal power, why not do it for hydropower?”

Qaumi Watan Party K-P chief Sikandar Sherpao, however, did not agree with conditioning NHP increase with increase in tariffs. “They [federal government] are passing the burden on to the public through this,” he said, adding the Rs.1.10 per kWh rate was pencilled out long ago. “The Centre is taking the issue rather frivolously,” he said, adding the K-P government should in turn condition the issue’s resolution with the unanimous approval of the NFC award.

K-P Minister for Energy and Power Muhammad Atif Khan was not available for comment despite repeated attempts to contact him.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 5^th, 2015.