The Senate was informed on Wednesday that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has received as many as six complaints against National Testing Service (NTS) pertaining to financial wrongdoing, cheating and leakage of question papers through social media. Law Minister Mahmood Bashir Virk told the House during the question-hour in a written reply that four complaints were about financial wrongdoing, cheating and embezzlement and two were regarding leakage of question papers through electronic media such as Whatsapp, Facebook, etc.
He explained that presently these complaints are at complaint verification stage at NAB, Rawalpindi, and reportedly FIA is also inquiring the matter. These complaints are being examined to avoid multiple legal proceedings/jurisdictional issues. PML-N Senator Kalsoom Perveen had asked about complaints regarding NTS. To a question by PTI Senator Mohsin Aziz, the minister in-charge of the President's Secretariat said that the budget allocated for the President House (personal and public) from fiscal years 2008-09 to 2012-13 was Rs 2614.495 million, whereas it stood at Rs 3,428 million during the last four years.
Minister of State for Power Abid Sher Ali said that the provinces are not cooperating in managing power losses, which led to load-shedding in areas of certain power distribution companies. He added that power generation has increased to 22000MW, which was 13000MW five years back. He pointed out that the provinces had been asked to complete work on transmission lines-related matters by March-April this year. The minister offered the provinces to run the power distribution on their own. He noted that losses stemming from AJK are a burden on IESCO.
Federal Minister for Power Sardar Awais Leghari informed the House that there is no ban on renewable energy projects. He added the government is now going for competitive bidding, which is heavily in favour of consumers. The minister said no load-shedding has been carried out since December last year on account of generation shortfall. However, DISCOs may carry out load-shedding under their jurisdiction depending on their technical losses and recovery issues.
He noted that 15 wind energy projects with capacity of 788.5MW are presently operational while another nine are under construction with capacity of 445MW and another four are at initial stage, having capacity of 164MW. The minister said that mass wind data mapping is being collected and this would be completed this year and then wind energy projects would be launched in the four provinces.
Minister for Water Resources Syed Javed Ali Shah said that acquisition of land for Diamer-Bhasha Dam is in progress and so far 31,696 out of total 37,419 acres of land has been acquired. He further said the major reason of delay in land acquisition is a boundary dispute between KP and GB and it is expected that the land acquisition would be completed by this year subject to resolution of boundary dispute.
The minister noted that PC-I of the dam amounting to Rs 894.257 billion was approved by ECNEC in August 2009. However, due to escalation in prices, current estimated cost provided in PC-I submitted to the Planning, Development and Reform Division is Rs 1,400 billion. He said no dam or barrage has been built on Rivers Sindh, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Beas under the Indus Water Treaty during the last ten years.
The law minister said that presently five posts of judges are lying vacant in the Federal Shariat Court: one post of judge has been lying vacant since 2014 due to completion of tenure appointment; two posts have been lying vacant since May last due to completion of tenure appointment and one post is lying vacant due to appointment of Justice Sheikh Najamul Hassan as Chief Justice Federal Shariat Court with effect from May 14 last. Another post became vacant on October last due to repatriation of Justice Ashraf Jahan to Sindh High Court.