ISLAMABAD: The Senate was informed Wednesday that the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had received several complaints pertaining to financial wrongdoing and cheating in the National Testing Service (NTS) and leakage of question papers through social media.
Law Minister Ch Mahmood Bashir Virk told the House during the question hour in a written reply that question papers were leaked through WhatsApp, Facebook etc. He explained that presently these complaints were at complaint verification stage at the NAB Rawalpindi and reportedly the FIA was inquiring also the matter so these complaints were being examined to avoid multiple legal proceedings/jurisdictional issues.
The PML-N Senator Kalsoom Perveen had asked about complaints regarding NTS. To a question by PTI Senator Mohsin Aziz, Minister in-charge of the President’s Secretariat said the budget allocated for the President House (personal and public) during the fiscal year from 2008-09 to 2012-13 was 2,614.495 million, whereas it stood at Rs3,428 million during the last four years.
Minister of State for Power Abid Sher Ali said provinces were not cooperating in managing power losses, which led to loadshedding in areas of certain power distribution companies. He added that power generation had increased to 22,000MW, which was 13,000MW five years back. He pointed out that the provinces had been asked to complete work on transmission lines-related matters by March-April this year. The minister offered the provinces to run the power distribution on their own. He noted that losses, stemming from AJK were a burden on Iesco.
Federal Minister for Power Sardar Awais Leghari informed the House that there was no ban on renewable energy projects. The minister said no loadshedding was being carried out since December last year on account of generation shortfall. However, he said, Discos may carry out loadshedding under their jurisdiction depending on their technical losses and recovery issues. He noted that 15 wind energy projects with capacity of 788.5MW were presently operational while another nine were under construction with capacity of 445MW and another four were at initial stage, having capacity of 164MW.
Minister for Water Resources Syed Javed Ali Shah said acquisition of land for Diamer Bhasha Dam was in progress and so far 31,696 acres (85 percent) had been acquired out of total 37,419 acres of land was to be acquired. He said the government and private land to be acquired in Gilgit-Baltistan was 35,991 and 1,428 acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Javed said the major reason of delay in land acquisition was a boundary dispute between the KP and Gilgit-Baltistan governments and it was expected that the same would be completed by this year subject to resolution of boundary dispute.
The minister noted that PC-I of the dam amounting to Rs894.257 billion was approved by Ecnec in August 2009. However, he said, due to escalation in prices, current estimated cost provided in PC-I submitted to the Planning, Development and Reform Division is Rs1,400 billion. He said no dam or barrage had been built on rivers Sindh, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi and Beas under the Indus Water Treaty during the last 10 years.
The law minister said that presently five posts of judges were lying vacant in the Federal Shariat Court: one post of judge was lying vacant since 2014 due to completion of tenure appointment; two posts were lying vacant since May last year due to completion of tenure appointment and one post was lying vacant due to appointment of Justice Sheikh Najamul Hassan as Chief Justice Federal Shariat Court from May 14 last year. Another post fell vacant in October last year due to repatriation of Justice Mrs Ashraf Jahan to the High Court of Sindh.
