A Senate panel was informed on Wednesday that 58 percent of electricity consumers in Pakistan are receiving power at a subsidized rate of just Rs. 10 per unit, under the government’s protected category scheme. The revelation came during a meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Power, held at Parliament House under the chairmanship of Senator Mohsin Aziz.

Power Division Secretary Rashid Mahmood told the committee that the subsidized rate was part of a broader relief initiative, supported by a Rs. 250 billion subsidy package approved by international financial institutions. He also emphasized that no additional surcharges would be imposed on consumers, as circular debt repayment is being managed through the already implemented debt servicing surcharge.

Despite the subsidized electricity and surplus generation capacity, Senator Mohsin Aziz questioned the continuation of load shedding across the country. The Power Secretary responded that outages are only being carried out in areas with high rates of electricity theft, and that efforts are underway to deploy technology at the transformer level to curb these losses.

K-Electric officials briefed the committee that 70 percent of their 2,100 feeders experience no load shedding, while the remaining 30 percent face outages due to excessive theft. They also said that consumer bills are being split into installments to make payments easier.

The committee also discussed the slab-based billing system, with Senator Aziz terming it overly harsh. He suggested that unit charges should be calculated on an annual average basis to provide more balanced billing.

The Secretary highlighted a new self-meter reading initiative designed to improve transparency and billing accuracy. So far, over 500,000 users have downloaded the app, and 250,000 have registered.

The meeting was attended by Senators Sherry Rehman, Syed Shibli Faraz, Syed Kazi, and Poonjo Bheel, and concluded with a call for a detailed report on theft-reduction measures and tariff reform in the next session.