Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, the prime minister said the package would provide relief of up to Rs7 per unit to around 25 million domestic consumers falling in the protected category for three months till September.

PM Shehbaz said, “Today, an amount of Rs50bn has been allocated to provide a relief of Rs 4-7 per unit as a concession to our protected category consumers using up to 200 units a month for a three-month period from July to September.”

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He added that the relief would benefit around 25m domestic power consumers which constitute around 94pc of the total consumer base.

He said that the federal government had scraped the said amount from its development budget to realise its commitment to public relief, contrary to the “hollow claims” of previous governments.

He also pledged further relief for the people as the government achieved fiscal space consequent to its ongoing measures of taxing the elite class, expanding the tax net, closing non-performing entities and plugging financial leakages.

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During its previous 16-month stint, the coalition government saved the country from default by putting its politics at stake, he said.

He noted the government was going to sign a three-year programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and had also taken it on board about the relief announced for the domestic power consumers.

“The government will give a discount of Rs50 billion to the electricity lifeline consumers in July, August and September. For three months, 25 million consumers of the country will benefit from the government’s relief,” as per a post on the X account of PTV News.

The post maintained that the move would benefit “94 per cent of the country’s domestic consumers” of electricity.