‘One extra unit, six months of punishment: stop unfair power and gas bill system, please’
This is apropos a letter to the Editor from this writer titled ‘One extra unit, six months of punishment: stop unfair power and gas bill system, please’ carried by the newspaper in recent days.
I repeat this does not mean that electricity should be consumed by the consumers with restraint. Rather, it means that tariff policies must distinguish between unnecessary consumption and reasonable domestic needs.
Three practical solutions to make the system fairer:
Instead of maintaining a rigid six-month restriction, the government should consider alternative billing mechanisms that protect deserving consumers without undermining the financial sustainability of the energy sector.
- Replace the six-month restriction with monthly assessment
The most straightforward solution would be to assess a household’s eligibility for the protected tariff on a monthly basis.
Under this arrangement, a consumer exceeding 200 units in one month would be charged according to the applicable tariff for that month. If consumption fell below the prescribed threshold in the following month, the consumer would immediately regain eligibility for the protected tariff, subject to the applicable rules.
Zahid Rajput, Karachi
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026
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