PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly unanimously passed as resolutions against the Fuel Price Adjustment (FPA) surcharge in bills in the province despite producing surplus electricity through hydraulic power plants.
Introducing his resolution, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) lawmaker Ikhtiar Wali said the KP is generating electricity hydraulic power plants but the poor people of the province has been subjected to “unjust” FPA surcharge for a long time.
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He said that it is also a violation of the 18th constitutional Amendment which provides that every province has the first rights over its natural resources. The resolution said, “This Assembly recommends the federal government to abolish the fuel surcharge in the electricity bills in KP and arrange for the refund of the money received from the people of the province.”
The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority of Pakistan (NEPRA) had increased the unit price of electricity by Rs4.74 paise in terms of October fuel price adjustment. The people of the province have strongly reacted to the ‘unjust’ increase in their bills and demanded the government to withdraw the fuel charges.
Before the passage of resolution by the KP assembly, the Jamaat-e-Islami has staged protests against the Fuel Price Adjustment recover in electricity bills on Friday in Peshawar, Chitral, Mardan, Nowshera, Dera Ismail Khan, Dir, Swat and Mansehra on the appeal of senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan. Senator Mushtaq in his statement issued from Al-Markaz-e-Islami termed the recovery of Fuel Price Adjustment “extortion”. Mushtaq said that the center has deprived the province of its due constitutional rights.
The country has been witnessing a steady rise in the price of electricity for some time now. Whenever NEPRA announces new fuel adjustment charges, there is a backlash from consumers. NEPRA sets the price of fuel for a specific period in the price of electricity, which can be positive or negative. The decision of NEPRA’s monthly fuel adjustment is also based on the increase in fuel prices in the global market in the month of October.