The electricity price has been increased for power consumers across the country, and a notification declaring the increase in power tariff has been sent to the federal government for approval.
Power consumers will be charged Rs46.61 billion for the third quarter of the current financial year. According to the Nepra notification, electricity charges will be collected from power consumers, including the K-Electric customers, in June, July, and August.
According to the notification, customers will be charged Rs1.90 per unit in June and 93 paise per unit in both July and August.
On the other hand, the federal government has removed provincial projects from the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the next fiscal year on a demand of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The share of provincial projects in this year’s federal development budget was 33 percent, official sources said.
However, the federal government removed 72 provincial projects from PSDP for the next financial year, for the federal projects are badly affected due to provincial projects.
The federal government also completely abolished the discretionary development schemes of the Members of the Parliament (MPs) on the demand of the IMF.
It is to be noted here that Rs90 billion were allocated for the parliamentarians due to the election in the current financial year.
The government of the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM) had released Rs61 billion for the development projects carried out by MPs in their constituencies. On the objection of the IMF, the caretaker government did not release more funds for the projects.
In the new budget, the health sector development budget was reduced from Rs26 billion to Rs17 billion.
Moreover, Rs32 billion were allocated for the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and the education sector against the previous development budget of Rs83 billion.
The IMF had also prohibited funding to provincial universities, stating the universities should arrange financial resources themselves or the provincial governments give grants to them.
The federal government will not start any new infrastructure project under PSDP for next year. Different infrastructure projects will be completed through public-private partnership.
