According to Dawn, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) blamed the Pakistan Muslim League-N party for the increase in electricity prices and issued a warning that prices could rise to about 85 Pakistani Rupees (PKR) per unit in the coming months.
With protests erupting over inflated power bills, PTI secretary general Omar Ayub Khan said the PML-N government was responsible for the “inflated and unbearable” electricity bills.
He stated further that the PML-N was making the country dependent on expensive imported energy, as the capacity payments due to take-and-pay contracts had touched PKR 2,000 billion this year.
“PML-N made Pakistan dependent on expensive imported energy and today 70 per cent of the electricity produced in Pakistan is dependent on imported fuels,” he said.
He claimed that the devaluation of the rupee was increasing the fuel price adjustments. He asserted that the price of electricity had increased by more than four times in just 15 months, from PKR 16 per unit during the PTI administration to PKR 68 per unit, according to Dawn. The general public and trade associations protested following the increase in electricity costs in several cities, and Anwarul-Haq Kakar, the caretaker prime minister of Pakistan, was later informed of the situation. After considering the situation, he called an urgent meeting for Sunday.