ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday issued directives for forming a parliamentary committee to investigate the alleged irregularities in the purchase of land for the construction of the Diamer-Bhasha dam project.

Presiding over the 14th meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy at the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr Sharif said that acquisition of land for the 4,500MW hydel project should be done by July 31.

In parliamentary traditions, the prime minister, as the leader of the house, can only ask the speaker of National Assembly to constitute a parliamentary committee, but cannot himself issue directives for it.

Also read: Diamer-Bhasha ‘smartest choice’ for Pakistan: US

But, as per the press statement issued after the meeting, the word ‘ordered’ has been attributed to the prime minister.

The statement said that the meeting which lasted more than three hours heard a presentation by the secretary for water and power on load management and recoveries.

A source privy to the meeting told Dawn that the federal government was not happy with the PTI-led Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government over its role in clearing the area for the Diamer-Bhasha project.

In this regard the federal government has already written to the KP government.

He said by forming the parliamentary committee on the project the federal government wanted to take all parliamentary parties on board.

Wapda Chairman Zafar Mahmood briefed the meeting on matters related to Diamer-Bhasha project.

The prime minister asked the Wapda chairman to present the complete project proposal with timelines in the next meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy.

Load management: Keeping in view the increasing demand of electricity in coming days because of hot weather across the country, the meeting spent considerable time on load management during summer.

The meeting was informed that this year the duration of average loadshedding was six hours in urban areas and eight hours in rural areas. An exception was made for areas from where recovery was very low.

The prime minister called for tangible steps to control power theft and speed up recovery.

He directed the ministries concerned to look into the possibility of increased supply of gas to Guddu power plant so that more than 700MW of electricity was added by October.

The federal Minister for Petroleum, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, briefed the meeting on progress on the LNG-based power plants. He said LNG would cost even less than furnace oil.

The prime minister gave approval for converting power plants running on diesel and furnace oil to LNG.

The meeting was informed about installation of subsidised tube-wells in Balochistan.

Water & Power Secretary Mohammad Younus Dagha briefed the meeting on access to solar power in rural areas of Balochistan.

Among others who attended the meeting were Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Minister for Water & Power Khawaja Mohammad Asif, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, Minster of State for Petroleum Jam Kamal Khan, Cabinet Secretary Raja Hassan Abbas, Adviser to the PM on National Security and Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz, Special Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi, Secretary Finance Dr Waqar Masood, Secretary Petroleum Arshad Mirza, Secretary Information Mohammad Azam and Chief Secretary of Gilgit-Baltistan Syed Tahir Hussain.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2015

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