ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has decided to impose an additional charge of 70 paisa per unit on power consumers in a bid to collect $1.5 billion for laying a transmission line from Sindh to Punjab.
The estimated cost will be recovered from the consumers of state-owned power distribution companies, excluding the privatised K-Electric, over a period of 25 years, which will meet expenses of laying an 878-kilometre transmission line from Matiari, Sindh to Nankana Sahib district, Lahore.
Of the total stretch of the transmission line, 550.65 km of power cables will be laid in Punjab and 314.9 km will be covered in Sindh. It will be a 660-kilovolt high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line and help transmit 4,000 megawatts of electricity from the new coal-fired power plants at Port Qasim, Hub and Thar to northern Pakistan.
The government was seeking to collect Rs1.1 per unit to raise Rs200 billion, but the regulator after reviewing the statistics allowed Rs0.70 per unit, which would bring Rs156 billion. However, the regulator clearly pointed out in the decision that the additional tariff would be applicable for 25 years only.
The National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) and the State Grid of China had signed a cooperation agreement in April 2015 for laying the Matiari-Lahore transmission line, which has been included among priority projects of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
