In a major decision the government has notified enhancing the slab of electricity life line consumers from the current level of 50 units to 100 units per month that will be costing the national exchequer Rs 65 billion in subsidy. An official said that the decision was made in line with the recommendations finalised at the recently held energy summit. T slab for life line consumers have been increased from 50 to 100 units. The new slab will be effective from the next month electricity bills. Earlier, only the life line consumers using 1 to 50 units were exempted from tariff increase and imposition of General Sales Tax. Now, the domestic consumers using upto 100 units will be treated as life line consumers and will enjoy the benefit of exemption from tax and tariff increase. The tariff rate of the consumers under the new slab will automatically reduce and they will get monetary benefit of about Rs 3.40 per unit.
After notification of increase the units limits from 1 to 100 units, about 3.4 million more consumers will be benefited. The lifeline consumers will now increase to 13.7 million. An official source said the decision on applying uniform tariff for rest of the consumer slabs was being worked out which was approved with the consultation of the provincial governments. He said the provincial governments approved the proposal even though they were apprehensive about political fall out.
