Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has condemned the decision of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority as it has approved an increase of Rs2.04 per unit in electricity tariff.

The recent increase in the electricity rates has added to the woe of public as they were already burdened by price hike of gas and petroleum, Mahfooz Elahi, President ICCI has said in a statement. He urged the Government to immediately withdraw this increase to save businessmen and the general public from further trouble.

ICCI President said that power tariff in Pakistan was already highest in the region and in this situation, there was no justification to further increase it. He said that during the last two years, Government has made frequent hikes in power tariff making it more than 70-80 percent costly which has shattered the confidence of businessmen and investors in our economy.

He was of the view that consistency in power tariff was the key requirement for making long term business expansion plans. Frequent increase in electricity tariff was affecting investment and also destabilizing the economy, he added.

He said that instead of hiking electricity rates, government should focus on bringing more efficiency in the working of power transmission and distribution companies because the prevalent inefficiency of these companies was causing losses of billions of rupees to the national exchequer apart from affecting the entire national economy.

Mahfooz Elahi emphasized to allow the industrialists to produce electricity in accord with their requirements on limited level and urged the Government to take the concrete steps to check line losses rather than increasing electricity rates which would be greatly helpful to control the escalating prices of electricity.