Murad writes to Khaqan on LNG policy

Just after attending the meeting of the Council of Common Interests in Islamabad Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah wrote to Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to ask him to circulate draft policies for import of LNG and its utilization, and implementation of Articles 158 and 172(3) of the Constitution.
The letter says "reference to the deliberations in the 31st meeting of CCI (May 2) wherein all the chief ministers confirmed the minutes of the meeting held under the chairmanship of Federal Minister for Law and Justice on March 3, 2017 and yourself very kindly agreed to circulate the policy on May 3, 2017.'
The letter further says "the committee made the following decisions. "The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources (MoPNR) shall place LNG policy before the council and, the MoPNR shall submit a policy paper before the CCI in respect of implementation of Article 158 and 172(3) of the Constitution."
The letter also says "It is, therefore, requested to please share respective summaries for CCI along with draft policies for import of LNG and its utilization, implementation and Article 158 and Article 172(3) of the Constitution at the earliest prior to its placement before CCI for deliberations.
The federal government had approved the import of LNG and its utilization policy without bringing it in at the CCI. The governments of Sindh and other provinces have conveyed to the federal government that the LNG import is a CCI subject, and that therefore the import policy must be approved in the CCI meeting.
Article 172(3) says that the provincial government concerned from where oil and gas reserves are discovered would jointly manage its control along with federal government. In other words, the federal and provincial governments would jointly manage the control on equal basis.
Article 158 guarantees the right of the province concerned on gas from where it is produced to meet its requirement first and then share with other province, if it is in excess. The chief minister also discussed the protection policy on floods in the CCI meeting and presented a notification of former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto that flood protection was the job of the federal government. The federal government has prepared a flood protection plan costing Rs 177 billion and was pressing the province to bear expenditures. This item was discussed in detail after which it was agreed that the provinces and the federal government would equally share the expenditures.