Islamabad - Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power castigated Nepra for not attending meetings and once again held the regulatory authority responsible for sending excess bills to consumers during last couple of months.
Despite notices neither Nepra officials are coming to committee meetings nor they attended sub committee especially assigned to hear authority’s side of story in excess billing, said Senator Zahid Khan, on Monday while chairing the committee meeting. He said that Chairman Senate Nasyyar Hussain Bukhari has been informed and on his return from his visit, a meeting of all chairmen would be called, which would recommend stringent actions against the Ministers and other officials who will remain absent from meetings and in this regards, a legislation would also be sought, Khan said. The committee also expressed serious concerns over the delay in construction of Kurram Tungi dam and said that the project was conceived in 1952 and would irrigate 26 million acre land and would produce 85 megawatts electricity. The committee observed that despite its importance the work on project was on a snail’s speed. Chairman Wapda Zafar Mehmood informed that the consortium carrying out construction work on the dam has been dissolved and despite several requests Frontier Works Organisation has not answered the requests to take over the project.
The committee members expressed their dissatisfaction over FWO for not responding and asked that why FWO is minting money by carrying out road and urban construction projects and was not responding to an important national project. The committee unanimously decided to write a letter against the FWO to Prime Minister and said that either organisation surrender all ongoing lucrative projects or start construction on Kurram Tungi dam.