MPs annoyed over hike in electricity prices.

Byline: Fawad Yousafzai

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf own Parliamentarian Friday deplored the high electricity prices in the country saying that the cost of electricity has reached to Rs18 per unit. The electricity meters are running at very fast speed and the electricity is too costly, said MNA from government benches, Noor Alam Khan while talking in the National Assembly standing committee on Energy. The meeting of the Standing Committee on Energy was held under the Chairmanship of Dr. Imran Khattak. Noor Alam Khan said the monthly bills are very high as the electricity cost has reached to Rs18 per unit, he maintained.

Interestingly, MNA Noor Alam Khan who hails from government party also complained that in his constituency, even his own projects are being stopped. He alleged that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has removed his ongoing schemes developmental portfolio. The government has decided that it would provide new gas connections of only imported Re-gasified Liquefied Natural Gas (RLNG) to the industrial sector, as there is shortage of system gas in the country, Federal Minister for Energy Omar Ayub Khan said this before a parliamentary panel here Friday.

He said that they the government is working on increasing the local production of oil and gas and for this purpose, it would hold bidding for 40 new blocks for oil and gas exploration by December 2019, minister said this while briefing National Assembly's standing committee on Energy. The committee met here with the MNA Imran Khattak in the chair.

Pakistan's gas production is 3.7 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) while demand is 6 bcfd, while the previous government to the gas companies to the brink of default. In next few years, demand would increase would 7 bcfd, he said. He further said that the local system gas price is Rs750 mmbtu, while imported RLNG price is more than Rs1400 per mmbtu.

Akhtar Mengal said that electricity demand in Balochistan was 1500 mw while the transmission capacity is only 500 mw. The laying of transmission lines from Quetta to Gwadar will be completed by 2021, the minister added. He further said that Saudi Arabia is also installing a power plant of 500 MWs in Baluchistan. 'We are spending Rs85 to Rs100 billion for up gradation of power transmission/ distribution system across the country,' Omar...