ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) approved on Monday gas price revision for domestic, commercial and power sectors for six months from January to June, 2023.

“The Ministry of Energy tabled a summary on Natural Gas Sale Pricing for FY 2022-23 and presented tariff proposals for all consumer categories in accordance with the Review of Estimated Revenue Requirement (RERR) for the fiscal year 2022-23,” according to a finance ministry press release.

Sources told Aaj News that the government has increased gas prices from 16.6% to 124%, adding that household consumers of 50 cubic metre would be exempted from it.

They added that the price of 100 cubic metres of gas has been fixed at Rs350 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu) after a 16.6% increase while 200 cubic metres of gas price has reached Rs730 per mmBtu after 32% increase.

Apart from this, the price of 300 cubic metres of gas has increased by 69% to Rs1,250 per mmBtu and 400 cubic metres of gas increased by 99% to Rs2,200 per mmBtu.

Moreover, the price for commercial users have soared to Rs1,650 after 28.6% increase.

Earlier, the government had imposed a Rs3.82 per unit power holding levy (PHL) on electricity consumers.

The cabinet committee also allowed the economic affairs ministry for signing a debt rescheduling agreement with Russia for debt suspension of Covid-related amount $14.53 million.

The approval was given after the ministry presented a summary on G-20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). This debt relief was announced in April 2020 for IDA eligible countries to mitigate the socio-economic impact of Covid-19.

Under this initiative, the debt relief was extended through the suspension of principal and interest payments. So far, 37 debt rescheduling agreements with 15 creditor countries have been signed.

The ECC granted Rs40 billion as technical supplementary grant to the Benazir Income Support Programme to meet its budgetary requirements for an increase in unconditional and conditional grants.

The Ministry of Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety presented a summary on the enhancement of the BSIP budget. It briefed the committee on the ongoing BISP programmes, including Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT) Programme ‘Benazir Kafaalat’ covering around nine million families, two Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programmes namely ‘Benazir Taleemi Wazaif’ and ‘Benazir Nashonuma’.

Besides, this disbursement of cash assistance to the affected persons of floods as an emergency relief of Rs 25,000 was provided per affected family to around 2.7 million families. In the CCT Programme, there have been accelerated enrolments in the Benazir Taleemi Wazaif and it is anticipated that additional one million children will be enrolled by the end of June, 2023.

Also the BISP has extended the CCT Benazir Nashonuma to all the districts of the country.