WB, govt agree on 13.5pc raise in power tariff

ISLAMABAD- The government and the World Bank agreed here Wednesday on what the Finance Ministry officials called ‘inevitable’ 13.5 per cent increase in power tariff during the current financial year.
The agreement was reached at the end of three-day talks between the Government and the World Bank on the cumbersome power tariff issues.
“How much and when to pass on this increase to masses would be the political decision of the government,” the officials said adding that the government had convinced the experts of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank that the prevalent energy crisis was not permitting it to increase the power tariff at once.
Finance Ministry spokesperson Asif Bajwa confirmed to The Nation that Banks missions and the government agreed on calculations of Rs 55 billion as the piled up difference between the cost of power generation and consumer price of electricity. “They (WB and ADB) have told us that this amount has to be passed on to consumers within this financial year” he added.
He said that since the financial institutions had left the timing of this inevitable increase to the government, therefore, there was no question of any deadline before the end of current financial year on June 30, 2010.
Bajwa further told The Nation that three-day negotiations concluded that Rs 122 billion were piled up on account of differential of price and generation cost of the Wapda. The government, he added, had undertaken to take away Rs 55 billion as the budgetary cost for the current financial year. “We’ll have to go for supplementary grants to adjust this amount,” he said answering this scribe’s question.