Citizens battle with amplified power bills

After being relieved of the curse of power outages, inflated electricity bills from the Lahore Electric Supply Company are a new thorn by the citizens’ sides.
According to LESCO officials, the bills are nearly double, and in some cases, triple their original amount because of the ‘fuel price adjustment (FPA)’ which happens to be much more than the electricity cost. They said in the next bills FPA would not be included, however, the consumers would have to pay them this time.
The inflated bills have completely disturbed the budget of consumers, who are in a fix over whether to pay the bill or not. The LESCO officials at Customer Care Centre are also helpless in this regard and are asking the consumers to pay the bill or their connections would be disconnected
The FPA was added for the month of June and July and the tariff was raised. Now the LESCO has added FPA of both months in the current bill, which resulted in drastic increase of electricity bills, an official of Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) said adding the accumulation of two months was a great error on LESCO’s account. The monthly FPA for the month of June was Rs 1.036 per unit and for July Rs 2.0429 per unit. For instance, a consumer whose current month’s unit consumption is 286 then their bill should not be more than Rs 2,100, however, with the addition of the FPA, the bill had soared to Rs 5,000. The company had calculated the FPA on the unit consumed during June and July. If units consumed during June are 1,000 then his FPA for June would be Rs 1,036 and if units consumed during July are 1,000 then FPA for the month of July would be Rs 2,043. Thus the final bill would be calculated by adding current amount in FPA of June and July, said the official. The consumers said the excessive bills had completely ruined their lives. They said that they could not pay such high bills and requested the government to halt the orders of collecting FPA. “I was not expecting such a high bill because I consumed only 170 units but my bill is Rs 2,700 and that is too much,” said a consumer Amir Latif adding the government has played havoc with the budget of people.
“I cannot pay such a high bill at the end of the month,” said another consumer Muhammad Khawar.
The LESCO officials at customer care centre were asking the consumers to pay the bill and there is no option for them. “You have to pay the bill and if the government asks us only then the FPA would be adjusted in the coming months,” an official of LESCO at Township customer care was telling people.
The LESCO sources said though the government had said that it would exclude FPA from the bills but it had not notified in this regard. “The verbal orders of any figure have no credibility in official affairs,” commented a senior official of LESCO. LESCO General Manager Operations Farasat Zaman was not available for comments.
PROTESTS: LESCO consumers protested against excessive bills on Thursday and demanded of the government to withdraw the high bills which they would not pay.
The consumers in Township encircled the office of Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) and also blocked the road and burnt tyres.
The LESCO office of Township closed its gates for the consumers and deployed security officials. The police also came and negotiated with the protestors while the LESCO officials said it was not possible for them to reduce the bills. The consumers also asked the LESCO for the instatements of the current bill in two parts but LESCO also denied it. “We cannot reduce the bill without proper notification from the government about abolishing of Fuel Price Adjustment (FPA),” said an official.