KP govt, Water, Power ministry agree to form committee

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Federal Ministry of Water and Power have agreed to form a joint committee for chalking out a strategy to address power outages and other related problems.
According to a handout, the committee would devise an efficient and sustainable system to reduce the duration of power loadshedding in the province by utilising the full share of KP in total electricity production.
It said the committee would also formulate a plan to control electricity theft with help and assistance of the provincial government. It would also recommend measures for timely completion of Wapda schemes, establishment of new gridstations and early repairs of faulty power transformers.
The committee will comprise of the provincial ministers for energy and information technology, minister of state for water and power, KP secretary energy, managing director of PEPCO, another high ranking officer of Wapda and two senior retired officers of Wapda.
The communiqué said the consensus was evolved at a meeting of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government and Federal Ministry of Water and Power. The meeting was held at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in the chair.
Minister of State for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Energy Atif Khan, Minister for Information Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani, Minister for Information Technology Shahram Khan Tarakai, Chief Secretary Amjad Ali Khan, Secretary Energy Ali Raza Bhutta, Managing Director PEPCO, Umer Rasul, CEO Pesco, Syed Hassan Fazil, and other concerned officers also attended the meeting.
During the meeting, both the sides discussed the issue of power outages and other electricity related problems in the province. The chief minister highlighted the problems being faced by the people of due to unprecedented power loadshedding. He urged the federal government to ensure provision of full share of the total power production to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.