'Raise in utility, POL items charges must be approved by Parliament'

Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) on Tuesday proposed that increase in utility charges and petroleum products price must be approved by the Parliament.
Taking part in the budget debate, PML parliamentary party leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan poured scorn on the government for massive increase in gas, electricity charges and petroleum items rates.
It must be binding on the government, he said, to take prior approval of the Parliament before making any changes in the prices of utility services and POL products.
The PML-N acting president said that in the last three years, the prices of petroleum items had been increased as many as 124 times, making it almost impossible for the masses to meet the necessary day-to-day expenses.
He claimed that his party's government had rejected the World Bank's proposal to link grant of loans to monthly increases in POL products prices.
"The then World Bank vice president had tried to persuade me as petroleum minister and even the prime minister Nawaz Sharif, but in vain. We resisted such conditionalities," he said.
He said there was no justification in such increases, which had grossly eroded purchasing power of the common man.
This, he argued, is the difference between the approach of a democratic government and a military rule.