The PML-N leadership is toying with the idea of constituting a high-profile committee comprising of all chief ministers to deal with lingering energy crisis with constant input from the provinces.
The committee will also be responsible for implementing the federal government policies to meet the gap between the demand and supply of electricity across the country.
Punjab Chief Minister-designate Shahbaz Sharif is qualified to head the committee being the chief executive of the largest province and also by virtue of its status as “big brother”.
Shahbaz has been quite active and vocal against the ongoing load shedding, with the Punjab on the receiving end and so deserves a role to mitigate the suffering of people on this count.
Due to his stance on loads shedding, it was widely believed that Shahbaz would volunteer himself to become the minister for water and power, triggering a debate in the country as to who will be Punjab’s CM if it is not him. But the party decided to name him as Punjab CM for a third time.
It is also learnt that the party is considering to make Shahbaz adviser to Khawaja Asif, who is going to become federal minister for water and power.
However, experts say that it would not be constitutionally possible for a CM to become an adviser to the federal government.
The committee of chief ministers will be a big step, if materialised, in equitable load management in the country, they say.
Due to lack of cooperation among provinces in the past, the federal government was unable to tackle load shedding. But now if the new federal government forms such committee it will improve cooperation among all federating units to mitigate the crisis. The committee will also provide feedback and guidelines to the department concerned.
