K Electric announces relief for small and medium enterprises through prepaid bills

K Electric (KE) announced relief  for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) through prepaid electricity bills under the ‘Small Business Industry and Support’ package announced by the federal government.

According to the spokesman for K Electric, the announcement was made under ‘Chota Karobar-o-Sanat Imdadi’ package announced by the federal government and under this package, commercial consumers with approved loads of up to 5 kW and industrial consumers with approved loads of up to 70 kW will get subsidy of  Rs 1 lakh and Rs 4.5 lakh in their electricity bills.

It was also informed that this relief starting from May this year can be used for 6 months.

He said that the amount of subsidy for each consumer would be as per the government guidelines based on the electricity consumed by the consumers in the basic period (ie May to July 2019).

According to the spokesperson, a reasonable average will be used for consumers who do not have data on power consumption between this period.

He said the relief would significantly reduce the financial burden on commercial and industrial enterprises that had been hit hard by the global pandemic.

He further said that the move was aimed at providing uninterrupted power supply in the worst-hit areas during the lockdown and continuity of power supply in the city after installation plans for customers using up to 300 units per month.

The spokesperson said that K Electric is committed to provide uninterrupted power supply to its 2.8 million customers.

Note that on April 27, the federal government announced a Rs 50 billion ‘Chota Karobar-o-Sanat Imdadi’ package for small traders affected by the lockdown due to the coronavirus, a package of Rs 75 billion was announced for those who were fired or daily wage earners..

Federal Minister for Industries Hamad Azhar had said that 3.5 million businesses will benefit from this package while the main point of the package is that we want small traders to resume their basic business whenever they start their next business. The government of Pakistan will pay the bill for 3 months.

He said that the program should be implemented in such a way that as many people and companies have commercial connections of up to 5 kW, which constitutes 95% of the commercial connections of the whole of Pakistan and those having 70 kW industrial connections, which are all industrial 80% of the connections will benefit from this policy.

He said that the estimate of electricity bill in the month of May, June and July last year would be added to the total amount of electricity bill by adding the total amount so that the bill would not have to be paid when electricity is used.

Continuing his speech, the Federal Minister for Industry said that this amount would not be acceptable for only 3 months which would be included in the bill for 6 months so that this amount could be utilized whenever the business started.

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