Power sector woes: Circular debt, capacity payment identified as major issues

The National Assembly Standing Committee on Power Division has termed over Rs1.6 trillion circular debt and rapidly increasing capacity payment charges as major issues of power sector, which are having profound impact on the sector and consumers.

This was the unanimous view of the committee members during its first meeting convened for selection of the chairman after the Standing Committee on Energy was divided into National Assembly's Standing Committee on Power and Standing Committee on Petroleum and Chaudhry Salik Hussain, son of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, was elected as chairman of the power committee on Tuesday.

The Energy Committee, which is expected to be made Petroleum Committee, was being headed by Imran Khattak. The power and petroleum sectors, according to some committee members, are major revenue generation sectors and the mess in the power sector requires to be fixed.

The chairman of the committee stated that there is need to review power sector structure and the committee's priority would be to give suggestions to the government on how to bring about improvement as the committee wants to play role for resolution of the power sector's issues. The committee members stated that over billing, load shedding and corruption in the power sector are major issues and the committee decided to visit distribution companies (DISCOs) and hold them responsible.

The PTI Chief Whip in the National Assembly Amir Dogar stated that there are 39 committees and after the constitution of this committee, total number of the National Assembly's committees would become 40.

Earlier, the Additional Secretary (Committees), National Assembly Secretariat, welcomed the members and briefed them about the procedure for election of the chairman. Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah, a member of the committee, proposed the name of Chaudhry Salik Hussain as chairman of the committee while Lal Chand and Muhammad Afzal Khokhar seconded his candidature and accordingly, Chaudhry Salik Hussain was unanimously elected as chairman of the committee.

The Additional Secretary (Committees), National Assembly Secretariat, congratulated the newly elected chairman on behalf of the speaker and secretary National Assembly and assured him full support from the Secretariat for effective and efficient functioning of the committee.

The chairman expressed his gratitude to the members for posing confidence in him and assured them to run the business of the committee with consensus. The members while appreciating the views of the chairman assured him their fullest support in the process of legislation.

The meeting was attended by MNAs Sher Akbar Khan, Mehar Ghulam Muhammad Lali, Malik Muhammad Amir Dogar, Saif Ur Rehman, Lal Chand, Chaudhry Salik Hussain, Engr Sabir Hussain Kaim Khani, Saira Bano, Azhar Qayyum Nahra, Mohsin Nawaz Ranjha, Sardar Muhammad Irfan Dogar, Muhammad Afzal Khokhar, Mahar Irshad Ahmad Khan, Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah and Syed Mehmood Shah, besides the senior officers of the National Assembly Secretariat.