ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Energy Owais Leghari has said that the government’s proposed new solar policy will apply only to new consumers, while existing consumers will not be affected.
Speaking on a private TV program, he made it clear that it was not possible for the state to provide heavy subsidies to crores of consumers.
Owais Leghari said that due to reforms in the electricity sector, electricity rates for industrial consumers have now come close to those in other countries in the region.
He said that the claims of six to seven cents per unit of electricity in Bangladesh by some quarters are not correct, and the ground realities are different.
According to the federal minister, the number of consumers using less electricity in the country has increased rapidly. He said that in the past, the number of consumers using less than 200 units of electricity was a few million, which has increased to crores, and it is becoming difficult for the state to provide heavy subsidies to this segment.
Earlier, the government had also informed that consumers using fewer units were being given a subsidy of up to 70 per cent.
Owais Leghari said that some wealthy individuals understate their electricity consumption after installing solar systems and are included in the list of concessional consumers, which further increases the subsidy burden.
He said that giving a discount of about 70 per cent in the price of electricity to such a large segment is not economically sustainable.
It should be noted that the government has also indicated in the past that such changes can be made in the solar and net metering policy that would reduce the financial pressure on the electricity sector and not put an additional burden on other consumers.
According to energy experts, the government is considering various policy options to reform the electricity sector, balance tariffs and stabilise the national grid.
