The Power Division has put on hold the proposed approval of Rs 4.69 per unit relief to K-Electric consumers in terms of Fuel Charges Adjustment (FCA) for April 2025, citing the government’s new policy aimed at ensuring uniform application of FCA to all electricity consumers across the country.
The development came during a public hearing held by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), chaired by Chairman Waseem Mukhtar. The hearing was convened to consider K-Electric’s request for interim Fuel Charges Adjustment relief for April 2025.
During the hearing, Additional Secretary (Power Finance) Mahfuz Bhatti, along with CPPA-G representative Naveed Qaiser, requested NEPRA to defer the approval of FCA till the decision of the federal government’s review petition regarding K-Electric’s Multi-Year Tariff (MYT), however, Bhatti did not provide any financial or technical evidence in support of this request.
The Power Division submitted a letter to NEPRA on June 23, 2025, requesting to defer the FCA concession for April for K-Electric. During the hearing, Mahfuz Bhatti took the stand that we are under the IMF program and there is an additional burden on the consumers, however, a NEPRA representative quickly clarified that FCA is actually a pass-through item that does not directly put financial pressure on the government, as Quarterly Tariff Adjustment (QTA) does.
NEPRA Chairman Waseem Mukhtar expressed strong reservations over the Power Division’s stance, saying that such a move undermines regulatory transparency and public trust. He questioned whether the request came directly from the federal government or was merely a decision of the Power Division, to which Mahfouz Bhatti clarified that the move was the Power Division’s own and its formal approval was still pending from the cabinet.
NEPRA Legal Member Amna Ahmed also challenged the justification for delaying FCA approval and inquired whether CPPA-GK-Electric would continue to provide subsidy to it? To this, Naveed Qaiser replied that there is a formal agreement between CPPA-G and K-Electric regarding subsidy. To this, Member Amna Ahmed sarcastically said that you have agreements with others as well.
NEPRA Chairman emphasized that since this is a public hearing, the entire process should be transparent and cannot be conducted in the dark. He expressed concern over the extraordinary delay in the federal government’s review petition and raised the question of when and how the FCA issue for K-Electric would be resolved if the process was delayed for six months. He also asked how such a large negative adjustment would be handled in the interim.
Naveed Qaiser initially suggested that since 10 paise per unit of positive FCA was being collected from the consumers of the discos for April, the same adjustment could be applied to K-Electric consumers as well. However, as soon as the Chairman NEPRA pointed out the discrepancy that the positive adjustment was being passed on to the consumers while the negative adjustment was being stopped, Qaiser immediately withdrew his suggestion.
Naveed Qaiser also claimed that the Power Division had sent a summary to NEPRA regarding the new FCA mechanism, but NEPRA’s Mubashir Bhatti denied this claim, clarifying that NEPRA had only given its opinion on an old summary and no new document had been received so far.
K-Electric CEO Syed Moonis Abdullah Alvi said that the company would abide by NEPRA’s decision, but expressed reservations over the sudden policy change. He said that in the past, K-Electric’s customers used to pay more FCA than the rest of the country, then no one talked about uniformity. He added that now that the FCA for Karachi is lower, withholding this relief is not only unfair but also undermines confidence in the regulatory system. Moonis Abdullah Alvi stressed that Karachi’s industrial and domestic customers were expecting this relief and they deserve equal treatment.
