LAHORE: The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) has asked the government to halt payments to the Independent Power Producers (IPPs) under the head of capacity payments; undo the agreements with these power producers and hold officials accountable for such agreements.
PKI President Khalid Khokhar in a statement issued on Wednesday said that historically the electricity tariff for industry and agriculture was 37.68 and 31.20 (2023-24), 29.92 and 21.68 (2022-23) 21.65 and 13.14 (2021-22) respectively, meaning thereby the agriculture tariff remained lower than the industrial tariff.
Whereas the new electricity price for agricultural tube wells have drastically increased to Rs41.02 per unit without taxes, compared to Rs28.56 per unit for Industry. “It is interesting to state that the agriculture sector grew more than 6.5% while the industrial sector growth was just 1% during FY 2023-24. The new electricity tariff is excessively high for a sector that showed the highest growth among all sectors,” he alleged.
He said water, which is a basic input for agriculture and livestock production, is now unbearably expensive at the new electricity rate. The use of urea fertilizer has already decreased by 21% in the last month due to high prices and lowered purchasing power as farmers could not get the due price of their produce like wheat and cotton. Urea prices may be fixed at Rs.3500 per bag at the most; currently, it is being sold at Rs.4500-4700. If the government’s strategy for agriculture continues in this manner, the sector’s growth could fall to below 2% next year, he warned.
He alleged that the government has given billions of rupees to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) belonging to 40 wealthy families at the cost of 240 million common citizens. Half of these plants have not generated any electricity and were given capacity payments, while the other 25 plants operated at only 8-10% of their capacity. This is a form of extreme exploitation or super-terrorism affecting the entire nation.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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