Fact-check: Rs1,000 fixed electricity tax on domestic consumers?

Social media is awash with claims that the government has implemented a new power tax of Rs1,000 on domestic consumers of electricity.

The claim is misleading.

Claim

"Until you do not come out on the streets, these people [the government] will keep making your life difficult,” wrote a user on Facebook on June 26.

The account added that domestic consumers of power will now have to pay Rs1,000 as a fixed tax from July 1. This post has been shared over 56,000 times and liked about 400 times, to date.

Similar claims were shared on TikTok as well.

Fact

The government has not imposed a new fixed tariff of Rs1,000 on residential consumers of power. Instead, users will have to pay a fixed amount of Rs200 to Rs1,000 which will vary depending on their unit consumption.

Sajid Akram, the director general appellate at the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), which regulates electricity supply in the country, shared with Geo Fact Check a breakdown of the fixed taxes which were approved on July 13.

The notification is also available on the Nepra website.

As per the official notification, only domestic consumers using power units over 300 will be charged a fixed tax.

The breakdown is as following:

The same was confirmed by Masroor Khan, the director of media at Nepra.

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