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Thursday March 28, 2024

‘Each Afghan refugee household to have own electricity meter’

By Sohail Khan
August 23, 2017

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Tuesday passed orders for installation of electricity meter at every house of Afghan refugee living in refugee camps in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP) with the ruling that the Afghan refugees should be charged for their electricity bills at the same rate as the Pakistani nationals are being charged.

A three-member bench of the apex court, headed by Justice Dost Muhammad Khan, heard a case related to provision of electricity to Afghan refugee camps in Khyber Pukhtunkhwa. During the course of the hearing Justice Dost Muhammad Khan observed that the poor people have no option but to get electricity through unfair means (kunda system) as they cannot afford the high electricity bills.

He observed that as Pakistan is signatory to UN Convention regarding Afghan refugees hence, they should be charged with the same electricity rate as the Pakistani nationals are being charged.

He further said that as there is no separate law for collection of separate rate of electricity bills therefore the government may consider separate legislation for Afghan refugees electricity rates adding that after this every Afghan national who wishes to apply for an electricity meter for house in the refugee camp, can be supplied electricity in accordance with law.

Justice Dost Muhammad Khan said that Afghan refugees have shifted to various parts of the country adding that the Peshawar High Court in 2012 had issued orders for controlling the shifting of Afghan refugees from refugee camps. However, he said that the order of the high court was not implemented in letter and spirit.

Now when people are being affected by the Afghan refugees then they are demanding sending of Afghan refugees back to their native land”, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan said adding that unfortunately the orders of the courts are not implemented.

He further recalled even the issue of illegal mobile SIMS  was resolved after the country faced a tragic incident. Elaborating this, he said that earlier mobile SIMS   were selling on the footpaths but when he gave order through Peshawar High court for verification of these mobile SIMS        through biometric system, the court’ order was again not implemented in letter and spirit.

However, he said that after two years when the Army Public School (APS) faced a terrorist attack, the authorities concerned started verification of mobile SIMS through biometric system. It is very unfortunate that courts orders are not implemented in letter and spirit, Justice Dost Muhammad Khan said

During the course of hearing, the court was informed that there are around 50 Afghan refugee camps in KP wherein the authorities concerned had installed only one metre in every refugee camp causing hardships to the dwellers. He said that there are people in these camps using air conditioners while some dwellers even don’t have a single bulb but they are charged the same rates of electricity as the people using air conditioners.

Justice Dost Muhammad Khan observed that there are power distribution companies having strange names one has named with Discos adding that another organisation has been named with a female artist which he at the moment did not recall. 

In Pakistan a PhD scholar gets only Rs2 lakh salary while a high official of a power company draws Rs1.6 million as salary, he observed.