ISLAMABAD (The Thursday Times) — The government is working to end the rule that makes households pay higher electricity rates for six months if their use goes even one unit over 200 in a single month, Power Minister Awais Leghari told the Senate on Tuesday, and is considering raising the threshold to 250 units.
Leghari was responding to a calling-attention notice from Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz senator Abid Sher Ali, who criticised his own party’s government over the tariffs charged by power distribution companies. Sher Ali asked how a consumer who used 201 units could end up paying at the rate for the 400-unit slab, and said the system hit low-income households hardest.
About 20 million consumers now use fewer than 200 units a month, Leghari said. But he said it would not be right to give discounts to everyone in that bracket, since some households used solar power to cut their reliance on the grid. Relief would instead be aimed at consumers living below the poverty line, he said.
A competitive power market
Speaking separately at the National Energy Summit 2026 in Islamabad, Leghari said the government had introduced a competitive electricity market and would not buy any more electricity itself. Consumers with a load of up to one megawatt would be able to buy power directly, he said, and the first request for proposals for the market had been issued.
Around 400 megawatts would be moved to the transmission grid through the competitive market in the coming months, the minister said, and wheeling charges had been cut from Rs28 to about Rs11 to Rs12 a unit.
