Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has waived off fuel adjustment charges for people consuming electricity up to three hundred units in a month.
Addressing the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz members of the National and provincial assemblies in Islamabad Thursday evening, the Prime Minister said despite financial constraints the government is committed to provide relief to people. The Prime Minister said decision of increasing prices of petroleum products was taken with a heavy heart. He said imprudent economic policies of the last government have pushed the country into economic instability.
The prime minister proposed to also waive off the electricity bills of the consumers in flood-affected areas and also exempt the farmers from ‘abiyana’ (water charges on crop irrigation) in calamity-hit places.
LHC gives relief to electricity consumers on quarterly adjustment tariff
PM Sharif also announced to launch in near future a solar programme for the production of 10,000 mega-watt of electricity as a cost-effective mode across the country. He said the solar programme would generate electricity at the rate of Rs 9 per unit, saving billions spent on expensive electricity production.
He lauded his economic and power team for making all-out efforts to materialize the mega solar project, which he said, would especially benefit the schools, hospitals and tubewells. The prime minister mentioned that Pakistan was facing extreme challenges while meeting the requirements of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), even while taking steps to give subsidy on electricity. He said severe mistakes and neglect by the previous government to address vital issues resulted in economic instability, adding that the nation could overcome the challenges with correct decisions about the leadership. He said the coalition government in four months faced challenges like economic instability as the predecessors made every effort to push the country onto the brink of default.
The prime minister mentioned that the previous government in the last around four years did not provide even a bit of relief to the common man and also did not fulfil the requirements of IMF. “Pakistan has to learn from its mistakes with a determination to overcome every challenge with resilience,” he said. He said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government at first exported wheat and later imported the same at exorbitant rates.
