ON March 18 last, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) is said to have lowered electricity prices by Rs2.80 perunit.

I wish this were true enough to be reflected in the inflated current bill received for power consumption of the previous month.

Each house in my street that I live in, at G 9/4 sector of Islamabad, has received bills amounting to Rs 21,000 and above. In my house there are five fans, two coolers, but no air-conditioners. I would grant that fans were on during the hot and humid month of July, but last month the bill was for Rs8,000.

The present bill for July is outrageously high.

We continue to have daily power outages of six hours , sometimes even 10 hours at a stretch. If we could have power for 24 hours during July, wouldn`t the bill exceed Rs30,000 for one month? So this August we are back at the inflated bill spectre of August last year.

The inflated bill this year, as well as of the past year, followed the holy month of Ramazan when we were spared power outages during Iftar-Travih as well as Sehri timings.

Having said that, we experienced few reductions in the scheduled power management hours during day time. Power would disappear soon at 10.30 at night and at the siren sound at the wee hours.

Last year, special assistant to Prime Minister Musadik Malik explained that inflated billing occurred because power producers supplied 5pc more energy. How could that be? Power production was 10,000 MW less than the demand of 18000 MW, according to newspaper reports.

JonaidIqbal Islamabad