ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday strongly regretted the negative impacts of the past pacts signed for expensive power and cumulative circular debt, and said the energy sector in the country was facing a severe crisis.
Chairing a review meeting over progress in the energy sector reforms, the prime minister observed that the common man and the industrial sector had been burdened with the agreements of the past for costly power generation, while on the other hand, the circular debt kept on ballooning due to the efforts made for provision of cheap electricity. That weight was also impacting the national exchequer, he added.
During the meeting, the prime minister was given a detailed briefing on continuity of the reforms process in the energy sector and achievement of various targets within the stipulated period, PM Office Media Wing in a press release said.
The meeting was attended by Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar, Minister for Energy Omar Ayub, Advisor on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, special assistants Shahzad Qasim, Nadeem Babar and Dr Sania Nishtar, and other senior officials.
The prime minister directed that the system for provision of subsidy should be made just fair and transparent, and special focus should be made on the system for ensuring the relief to the deserving people.
He further directed that a strategy and road-map should be formulated keeping in view various aspects, including reforms in the energy sector, power requirements and its generation, ratio in the increase and decrease during different months of the year, production cost, sale, revenue, and different rates of the electricity, and their impacts upon different sectors, so that the sector could be steered out of the crises, besides meeting the energy requirements of other sectors.—APP
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