KARACHI: Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s President Muhammad Haroon Agar, in a statement, has expressed deep concern over hike in power tariff of 56 percent for industrial, 33 percent for commercial and 15 percent for residential consumers and termed this decision as “penalty on honest consumers for dishonesty of others”.
He lamented the government has tried to find a short-cut solution for circular debt as average cost of power production in Pakistan is around Rs.14/15 and the tariff was between Rs.10/11. There was a gap of Rs.4 and this gap needed to be bridged to control power theft. Primarily this difference is because of theft and pilferage of electricity that simply means that instead of apprehending the culprits who are involved in steeling electricity, the government has given up or has shown its inability in reducing the electricity theft but surprisingly the government has decided to increase electricity tariff instead of controlling the electricity theft to meet both ends while the unscrupulous elements will be at liberty to continue stealing electricity. This simply means penalising the honest consumers for dishonesty of others.
