Federal Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Kaira said that a commission should be constituted to pin point those rulers who were responsible for not constructing the dams and responsible for power crisis. He was addressing the inauguration ceremony of the centenary celebrations of the Pakistan Engineering Congress here Monday. Vice President PEC Engineer R K Anwar, and former president engineer Hussain Ahmad also expressed their views on this occasion.
Kaira said dams are big projects and their completion takes at least ten years. He said that PPP government believed in strengthening the institutions. He said that no project in the country would be initiated without the approval of Council of Common Interests (CCI).
Earlier while responding to media about Tahir-ul-Qadri's long march, Kaira said that those who are talking about constitution should work within its orbit and the problems will be solved. While responding to a question about MQM's announcement of joining the long march of Tahir-ul-Qadri he said that MQM is PPP's ally and in the past they had differed with the PPP policies.
He said that research and development is another area which has been neglected for too long. He also said that we are spending only 0.15 percent of the GDP on research and development whereas in developed countries, the ratio is more than 1.5 percent of GDP.
Kaira said that attaining financial independence is the prime priority of the government and the stock market is bullish due to better economic policies, attracting internal and external investment. He also said that we should rely on indigenous resources and gave priority to Pakistani companies while awarding contracts. He said, "We are facing the problem of brain drain. Kaira said for strong Pakistan we need to strengthen provinces". He said that assemblies of three provinces had passed a resolution against the construction of Kalabagh Dam.
Kaira said when they came into power in 2008 there was nothing finalised regarding construction of Bhasha Dam, it was in the tenure of the present PPP government that land acquisition for the project was near completion and now the process had been started to float tenders. He also said that when they came into power there was no writ of the state in 2008 in Swat and now they had established the writ of the state. Without naming any party he said that leaders of some parties addressed gatherings of banned organisations only to save their vote bank. He said that all parties should be united against terrorism and evolves a strategy with consensus to solve this issue. He also said that President Zardari is the elected president who gave powers to the provinces and to the federal government. He said that he would try its best to solve the issue of service structure and in this regard he would talk to prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf in this regard.
Speaking on the occasion vice president PEC engineer R K Anwar said that government should take steps to solve the issue of energy crisis. He said that it is estimated that peak power demand by 2020 will be around 47,000MW. It will result in the shortage of about 32000MW which should be met either through hydel or expensive thermal development. It is pity that only 20 percent of the hydro-power potential of Pakistan has been tapped so far whereas 80 percent potential which is almost 50,000MW is still available to be exploited.