Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani has written a letter to the chairman Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power to convene a meeting on power cuts in Karachi. Rabbani expressed his concerns over unprecedented loss of lives caused by the current heatwave mainly due to power cuts by K-electric. In the letter addressed to the committee chairman, he said due to his busy schedule he could not take up the issue soon.
However, he said the Senate Secretariat was examining the issue that whether matters relating to the functioning of K-Electric, mainly in the context of affecting fundamental rights of the public at large, are provincial matters or not.
He further said according to the statement of Minister for Water and Power, the federal government is negotiating a new agreement with the K-Electric and the instant agreement will be laid before the parliament. Furthermore, the Federal Government has asked National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA) that as a regulatory body they should take notice of the issue allegedly arising out of K-Electric's mismanagement.
Rabbani also wrote in a letter to K-Electric, whereas the Ministry of Water and Power has asked the K-Electric to effectively address the current situation in Karachi which has claimed more than one thousand lives. The letter further described it as matter of grave public concern, which is likely to be taken up in the House during the next session commencing from July 06, 2015 enabling the House to have a well-informed debate on the matter, it is desirable that a meeting of the Standing Committee on Water and Power shall be convened at the earliest, but not later than July 5 to look into the matter.
The meeting will take input from all stakeholders and submit a report in this regard to the House during the 117th session of Senate commencing from July 6. He said the leader of the house and leader of the opposition have been consulted before writing this letter.
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