On 6 September 2026 ProPakistani reported that the federal government had cleared 11,695 pending net-metering applications on instructions from Power Minister Awais Leghari, out of 16,654 cases pending during the transition to net billing. PITC began contacting cleared applicants through text and WhatsApp, warning them not to pay intermediaries. Verification continued for the remaining 4,959 applications.
Those figures turn a vague grey zone into a countable pipeline. Clearing two-thirds quickly while holding one-third for verification is a reasonable administrative posture if criteria are public. Transition Economics Institute will watch whether the residual cohort shrinks monthly or becomes a permanent suspended class. Permanent suspension is how trust dies.
The episode also shows that net billing’s birth required operational triage, not only regulatory drafting. Future regime changes should pre-fund IT and DISCO processing capacity before cutoff dates. Announcing a February rule without a queue-clearing plan was always going to produce September headlines.
For the solar industry, cleared cases mean unfinished installations can complete under expected economics. For DISCOs, they mean another wave of daytime exports under legacy credits. Planners should update load forecasts accordingly rather than pretend the pipeline was fictional.
Consumer-protection messaging against agents is welcome. It should be paired with a public portal showing each application’s status so no one needs an agent to learn where their file sits. Transparency is cheaper than helplines after scandals.
Institutional accountability remains the missing hinge. NEPRA, the Power Division, CPPA-G, the system operator, and the DISCOs each hold a piece of the puzzle, yet none owns the full cash-conversion cycle. Until reporting, incentives, and penalties are aligned to the same monthly cash target, reform statements will continue to outrun results. Transition Economics Institute will keep measuring progress by whether billed energy turns into settled rupees, whether fixed generation obligations shrink in line with the demand profile, and whether consumers see durable relief rather than a temporary rebate financed by another round of arrears.