Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday extended the exemption for fuel adjustment charges (FAC) in August’s billing to consumers who use under 300 units of electricity.
The exemption, originally announced on Aug 23, previously applied only to consumers of 200 units of electricity or less.
“This will cover 75 per cent of the consumers across the country,” the premier said of the revised exemption as he addressed a meeting with PML-N lawmakers in Islamabad.
“In the first stage, power users consuming 200 units [or below] were given an exemption and the government was bearing a burden of Rs21 billion [for that]. But it only covered 48pc or 52pc of the users.
“I believe that this [waiver] will matter once we increase it to 300 units,” he said.
PM Shehbaz recalled that when his government came to power, it faced a myriad of problems. “We were only able to stand back on our feet after the IMF (International Monetary Fund) programme.”
He also regretted the Rs2.07 increase in petrol prices, announced by the ministry of finance last night, saying that the decision was taken because of fuel adjustment charges.
PM Shehbaz extends fuel charge adjustment exemption to 300 units of electricity consumption
