Pakistan is committed to reforms in the power sector including granting autonomy to power generating and distributing companies, Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said after discussing co-operation in the sector under strategic partnership with the United States.
"The government believes that giving autonomy for these companies is imperative to make them efficient," he told journalists after leading talks in the energy sector-working group. The minister said the International Monetary Fund officials appreciated the Pakistani resolve to reforms, in the power sector as a "step in the positive direction."
"The board of governors of power generating and distributing companies will be strengthened and we will bring experts from the private sector who can make these companies into financially viable." Ashraf said the government intends to complete this reforms process by next June. In the first phase, he said, four companies, those of Lahore, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Islamabad, will be made independent.
"We want to bring visionary people, who will run these companies on professional lines because we want to overcome the huge gap between power generation and the services (which is Rs 20 billion every month). Through these reforms we will be able to move towards affordable electricity."
Food and Agriculture Minister Nazar Muhammad Gondal told the newsmen that the working group approved allocations for various agricultural projects including nine million dollars for wheat production and rust disease prevention, nine million dollars for cotton production and disease prevention, nine million dollars for prevention of food and disease in livestock and some other programmes in the agriculture sector.
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