The Cabinet on Monday approved an amendment in the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) Ordinance to enable it to regulate marketing and pricing of ethanol as petroleum product.
Giving details of the Cabinet meeting, chaired by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, State Minister for Information Samsam Ali Bokhari said that the Cabinet ratified the decision of the Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) to introduce Ethanol-10 (E-10) blended fuel in the country and allowed imposition of petroleum development (PDL) levy on it at the reduced rate of 8.5 rupees per litre.
The meeting also approved National Drinking Water Policy to provide safe drinking water to the people at affordable cost. The drinking water policy is aimed at protecting public health and offsetting the huge cost in the shape of environment and natural resources damage to the country's economy. It seeks improving the quality of life of people by reducing incidence of disease and death, he said.
The Cabinet approved, in principle, the draft Energy Conservation Bill 2009 to reduce energy consumption and demand per capita and ratified a proposed amendment in WTO Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property rights Agreement for pharmaceuticals. If adopted by WTO, it would allow members to grant compulsory licence for production and export of patent pharmaceuticals to countries with insufficient manufacturing capacity.
The Minister said that the meeting also gave approval to negotiations on draft agreement for deputation of Pakistan Armed Forces personnel to Brunei Darussalam, negotiations for defence co-operation agreement with Romania and negotiations for finalisation of MoU for defence co-operation with Turkmenistan. The cabinet approved signing of loan framework agreement with China for PAKSAT-IR system project.
The draft 'Pakistan Marine Insurance Bill' was also approved by the Cabinet to provide adequate protection to marine insurance companies, their claimants, or principal debtors in a marine insurance claim. The Minister said that there was nothing serious and against the interests of Pakistan in the Kerry-Lugar Bill. He said that sugar crisis was not as serious as it was made to look and said that there was no truth in the media report of possible US drone attack in Quetta.
He said that timely support price of wheat would be announced and the Prime Minister and President had nothing to do with the power tariff as any decision to this effect is taken by Nepra after hearing all stakeholders. He said that Prime Minister had constituted a three-member committee, headed by Federal Education Minister, to look into the issues regarding establishment of National University of Law and Social Sciences in Islamabad. It will have its campuses in all the four provinces.