The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the Pakistani authorities to empower Oil & Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) to notify gas sale prices on its own twice a financial year based on the determined prescribed prices, saying that the government should now detach itself from tariff implementation issues.
This step will help avoid further build-ups in the gas circular debt that increased to Rs29,000 billion.
The fund also reminded government functionaries to increase the gas tariff for the Captive Power Plants on a par with the RLNG tariff till January 1, 2025, senior government officials told the publication.
Currently, the government does not extend the subsidy to any domestic consumers for using the natural gas as it is the industrial consumers or high-end domestic consumers who are giving the net cross-subsidy of Rs110 billion per annum to protected and some of non-protected consumers.
The fund also asked government functionaries to ensure gas tariff adjustments twice a year firstly from July 1 and secondly from January 1, so that the new surge in gas circular debt could not emerge further. The circular debt in the gas sector stands at Rs2.9 trillion.
