The Federal Cabinet's Sub-Committee on Energy, which met here on Tuesday, has decided to provide uninterrupted supply of electricity to agricultural tube-wells from 10 pm to 8 am daily. Federal Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Sheikh chaired the meeting held at the Punjab Governor's House here on Tuesday, disclosed an official.
Federal Ministers Dr Asim Hussain, Mian Manzoor Wattoo, Syed Khursheed Shah, Naveed Qamar and senior bureaucrats were also present in the meeting. On the occasion, the Finance Minister announced that in the next meeting of General Energy Committee, all the issues pertaining to load management would be discussed and the meeting will be called very soon.
The meeting discussed issues pertaining to supply of electricity to agricultural tube-wells and electricity load management in the country. On the occasion, it was decided to provide uninterrupted electricity to tube-wells used for agriculture purposes from 10 pm to 8 am till March 2012. It was also suggested in the meeting that in rural areas domestic and agricultural connections should be separated in order to provide uninterrupted power supply to tube-wells.
In response to the suggestion, Manzoor Wattoo observed that separation of connections in rural areas is a long-term project; hence, it is not possible within the ongoing fiscal year. He was of the view that agriculture is backbone of economy and if electricity is not provided to agricultural tube-wells, the economy could face a serious setback. Therefore, the meeting took the decision of providing continuous electricity from 10pm to 8am and also there will be no unscheduled loadshedding during the day in rural areas.
Federal Minister for Water and Power Naveed Qamar told the meeting that there will be a reduction in hydel generation from December to March and thus alternate means of power generation would be considered. Federal Minister for Religious Affairs Khursheed Shah pointed out that the areas fall under the Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) jurisdiction are cotton producing areas and they should be provided electricity or else cotton production could suffer.
Thus, he suggested that loadshedding in these areas should be carried out between 6pm and 10pm. On the occasion, the Federal Petroleum Secretary informed the meeting that in three months the government had to bear an extra financial burden of Rs 47 billion under the head of petrol and gas.
Comments
Comments are closed.