Summary Influential people involved in electricity thievery, can't name them, says Abid Sher Ali
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Federal Minister for Water and Power on Wednesday has said that industrial sector has been exempted from power outages.
He explained the ministry’s policy over electricity outages during question-answer session in the National Assembly (NA).
Ali said that a unanimous policy has been formulated for all provinces. Urban areas are seeing six-hour long outage while rural, eight-hour long, he added. The federal minister said that he could not talk openly about electricity thievery as some influential people are among the violators of the law.
He denounced reports regarding over billing in some areas and said that local authorities are monitoring billing procedures.
Ali said that the government has cut power tariff by Rs 5.5/unit in past five months while no regulatory duty was imposed.
Opposition members of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) said that at least 18-20 hours long outages are being carried out in several areas. To which Khawaja Asif retaliated and asked the opposition to name those areas.
He further said that feeders where huge line losses were reported are witnessing long power cuts while those having lesser losses are suffering lesser. Asif said that the government is working on micro and macro level energy projects.
Abid Sher Ali also said that provinces are required to agree over implementation of markets’ closure by 8 pm. He urged the provincial governments to cooperate in the matter as it would help conserve electricity.
Separately, Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture Rajab Ali Baloch said that at least Rs 6.8 billion have been distributed among flood affectees.
On the other hand, Anti-Money Laundering Bill 2015 has been approved by the National Assembly. The bill will pave way for an effective policy against money laundering and funding of terrorists.
Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar presented the bill during the session. Reports regarding illegal transference of funds and their usages will be compiled for sole purpose of grounding terror networks and curbing growing insurgencies in the world.
