Islamabad: Energy Minister Owais Leghari has denied the news about increasing the limit of protected electricity consumers to 300 units. He said that giving the 300-unit rate to more people would cost 275 billion rupees in subsidies every year, which is not possible in the current economic situation.
While answering questions in the National Assembly, the minister said that no electricity rate has been offered for cryptocurrency so far. He explained that the system currently has around 7,000 megawatts of extra power available. People who use less than 200 units every month are already getting subsidy and discounted rates.
He shared that there are more than 35 million grid-connected electricity users in the country. Among them, those who use between 0 to 100 units get a 90% subsidy, and those using 100 to 200 units get about 70% subsidy.
The minister explained that if there is no limit at 201 units, then the cut-off will have to be set at 251 or 301 units, and in such a slab system, the rate changes at some point. He added that giving the 300-unit rate to those using 200 units would mean paying a subsidy of 275 billion rupees every year, which the country cannot afford right now.
Owais Leghari also said that the number of consumers using less than 200 units has reached 18.3 million. In the last 9 months, their electricity bills have been reduced by 60%. In June 2024, 255 billion rupees were collected from the industrial sector as cross-subsidy, which has now come down to 94 billion rupees.
According to the minister, including taxes, the electricity rate has dropped from 48.7 rupees per unit to 38.4 rupees. For protected consumers, the rate has been reduced by 58%, and for non-protected consumers, it has gone down by 11% to 17%.
He also mentioned that the federal cabinet has approved competitive electricity markets for industries. A request has been sent to the regulator to set wheeling charges. The government has also decided that no more electricity will be purchased in the future.
Reported by Save Our Pak