KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has termed prolonged outages an act of high-handedness against the people and government of Sindh and requested Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to order the restoration of power supply immediately.
The chief minister stated this while winding up the discussion on a resolution tabled by Senior Minister Nisar Ahmad Khuhro against what were described as discriminatory moves by Federal Minister of State Abid Sher Ali on Tuesday.
In the resolution, which was passed unanimously by legislators rising from their seats when put to the house after 33 speeches across the aisle, the assembly strongly condemned the attitude of the federal water and power department for discriminating against Sindh province in supplying power and for not paying heed to public suffering.
“The assembly reiterates, resolves and recommends to the federal government to immediately stop discrimination and provide relief in the larger interest of provincial harmony, economy, agriculture development and public peace and calls for exemption of loadshedding to all pumping stations in Sindh province.”
The chief minister said he had written to the prime minister to resolve the issue of power dues and wondered why people were being punished for it. “We are prepared to sort out the issue on the table provided the amount of dues is justified.” Asking for restoration of the power supply, he said: “We are prepared even to take the responsibility of the genuine dues against our poor people.”
The previous government had also constituted a committee to resolve the dues dispute but despite our repeated requests to sit together a meeting with the present federal government did not materialise, he said.
He said in the last meeting of the Council of Common Interests the prime minister had formed a two-member committee to settle the issue but power connections were cut off even before the meeting. “We would ask the prime minister to summon the CCI meeting on the issue of dues and distribution of electricity.”
The chief minister recalled that when he had been invited to Kashmore on the inauguration of the 746-megawatt power project, he had asked the prime minister to sort out the issue and he had agreed but without waiting for the settlement of the issue the minsiter of state ordered the department to disconnect the electricity without taking into account the suffering of those residents who had paid their dues. They were made to suffer for casting votes in the favour of the PPP in the last general elections, the chief minister said, adding that people were staging protests across the province against this ‘dictatorial’ attitude.
Earlier, the chief minister said a very sensitive issue had been raised through the resolution as there was shortage of electricity but it was not created by them. The PPP government had initiated the Keti Bunder power project of 5,000MW but the next government dropped this project soon after the elected government had been rolled back, he said.
The chief minister informed the house that under Article 158 of the Constitution the first right to use power, gas and other resources was the right of the province where they were produced and under Article 157 the provincial governments could install power houses of 1,000MW capacity. Despite the rights, the province of Sindh was made to suffer, he said.
Those who had been blaming the Sindh government for not doing anything for the people of Thar were now killing the drought victims by depriving them of water and electricity, he said.
The resolution was tabled by Mr Khuhro after the chair suggested to PPP and MQM lawmakers who were protesting against the federal government’s ‘high-handedness of increasing loadshedding to make people suffer’. They asked the Sindh government to lodge protest with the federal government and warned that if loadshedding was not immediately stopped they would stage sit-ins.
PML-N lawmakers suggested to the house that the chief minister should lead a procession as Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif did against the loadshedding.
Mr Khuhro said that water crisis had deepened due to prolonged outages. Before the situation could go out of hand, the deputy speaker who was presiding the session intervened and the questions hour was taken up.