ISLAMABAD: The country’s business community has expressed concern following the announcement of uniform Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) of August 2025 across the country after inclusion of KE’s generation data.
“When KE FCA was merged with other DISCOs it was clear that overall FCA for country will decrease for country as KE FCA had been very favourable for many months given that KE had closed expensive plants and was taking power from north. This had caused FCA for rest of country to increase as plants higher up in merit order had to be also run to meet KE demand.
However, industry was shocked when instead FCA for August was worse than before and therefore industry had requested that calculation breakup be provided. Unfortunately, the breakup was not provided despite commitment. Industry requests Nepra to make sure the effect of KE was taken in August FCA calculation and was not missed,” said Aamir Sheikh, an industrialist.
Rs3.23/kWh DSS for 6 years: Business community slams govt for ‘celebrating’ continuation
He further argued that the pending favorable KE FPA for the previous months not announced yet should also be added to September FPA calculation so that overall tariff of country is reduced.
Meanwhile, Rehan Jawed from Karachi has written a letter to Chairman Nepra and Authority Members titled “alarm on non-submission of KE impact data and uniform FCA transparency gaps, raising serious concern regarding the persistent non-compliance by CPPA-G and Power Division with NEPRA’s explicit directions recorded during hearing on FCA determination for August 2025.” The Authority had directed CPPA-G to provide the impact of additional drawl of electricity by K-Electric from NTDC on the FCA for both K-Electric and national consumers.
“Despite the lapse of several weeks, no such analysis has been submitted to the Authority or the interveners. This continued disregard of NEPRA’s orders is deeply alarming and undermines the very process of evidence-based tariff determination,” he added.
Rehan Jawed further stated that since June 2025, a uniform FCA has been imposed on both K-Electric and DISCOs, yet no month-wise comparative assessment has been provided to determine: (i) whether this uniform application remains prudent and beneficial; (ii) how much cross-subsidy it creates between the two systems; and (iii) what its impact on fiscal subsidies and consumer equity truly is.
“The absence of this information makes the uniform FCA procedurally incomplete and analytically unsound, effectively denying transparency to the regulator and the public. Under Section 7 of the NEPRA Act, 1997, the Authority is duty-bound to protect public and consumer interest and ensure that only prudent and efficient costs are passed on to end consumers. Further, Section 31(7) empowers Nepra to make tariff adjustments strictly in accordance with verified and prudent data,” he added.
In light of existing provisions, he strongly urged that the Authority must not admit any FCA petition henceforth without complete, verified, and comparative data on the impact of K-Electric’s additional drawl from NTDC and the effect of uniform FCAs.
He further requested Nepra that Power Division and CPPA-G officials be mandatorily required to present this data in all FCA hearings, ensuring that these crucial datasets are incorporated before any petition is processed, adding that Nepra should exercise its statutory authority decisively to enforce compliance and protect the integrity of the regulatory process.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.