ISLAMABAD: The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) has approached Minister for Power Sardar Awais Khan Leghari over the proposed positive Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) of Rs 1.78 per unit for January 2026, seeking a review of the fuel and quarterly references incorporated in the January 2026–December 2026 consumer-end tariff to ensure that the announced industrial relief is preserved in effective terms.
In a letter to the Minister, FPCCI president stated that the FCA for January 2026 reflects an increase of approximately Rs 1.78 per unit over the reference fuel charges. In addition, the forthcoming quarterly tariff adjustment is expected to add around Rs 0.40 per unit.
Consequently, the effective benefit of the announced Rs 4.04 per unit reduction for the January billing cycle is reduced to nearly Rs 1.70–1.80 per unit.
READ MORE: Leghari says industrial power bills’ burden cut to zero
According to the FPCCI, the primary reason for this impact in January 2026 was the downward revision of the fuel price adjustment reference from Rs 11.64 to Rs 10.40 per unit, resulting in an additional burden of Rs 1.24 per unit on industrial consumers.
In practical terms, more than half of the announced relief has been neutralized within the same billing period.
The Federation further pointed out that tariff rebasing was undertaken in July 2025 and again in January 2026. Two structural resets within a short span have intensified tariff volatility and eroded planning certainty for industrial consumers.
Exporters, it noted, had already recalibrated international pricing, secured forward contracts, deployed working capital, and engaged labour based on expectations of a meaningful and sustained tariff reduction.
While power purchase price (PPP) components are legally treated as pass-through items, the present structure of fuel references and quarterly true-ups embedded in the consumer-end tariff is creating unintended distortions. When reference assumptions are set at levels that subsequently require upward adjustments through FCA and quarterly mechanisms, the headline relief loses its economic substance.
The FPCCI proposed the following measures:(i) remove or revise the impact of the January 2026 FCA from industrial bills so that the tariff remains as originally announced;(ii) undertake an immediate review of the fuel and quarterly references incorporated in the January 2026–December 2026 consumer-end tariff to ensure that the announced industrial relief is preserved in real terms;(iii) structurally rationalize fuel benchmark assumptions to eliminate recurring flawed reference anomalies that lead to abrupt upward adjustments;(iv) better align projected fuel cost parameters with prevailing and forward market indicators to reduce volatility; and(v) establish a defined stability horizon for industrial tariffs to restore predictability and safeguard export competitiveness.
“Industrial revival requires durable cost certainty, not transient headline reductions offset by contemporaneous adjustments,” the Federation emphasised.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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