Federal Minister for Commerce Engineer Khurram Dastagir Khan on Tuesday announced a schedule to overcome energy crises by October 2015.
During a visit to the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI), the minister announced that the country would “partially” overcome energy crisis in next 18 months thus offering relief to the general public with special regard to the business community.
Khan mentioned that the country was bestowed with the variety of natural resources but these had always been untapped in the past he said adding now all out efforts are in hand to tap these natural sources for extorting maximum gains for the benefits of general public.
Elaborating further he mentioned that the work on Thar Coal Project had been initiated and projects are being launched to convert the oil fed power generation plants to coal fed system whereby offering reduced electricity tariff to the masses.
However, the minister pointed out, this process may take longer to finalize as a lot of hectic efforts are involved to get these projects accomplished.
He said, the electricity theft is being considered as serious issue for one of the causes of the power crisis and the government is indiscriminately taking steps to check this menace
To the natural gas supply issue federal minister for commerce was of the view that during the last 30 years no effort was made to explore local gas resources whereby ending in to state of crisis in the sector. Meanwhile, he said the sector is being curiously looked after to overcome the short supply of the Natural Gas through exploring local reserves besides importing Liquid Natural Gas (LMG).
The commerce minister said that the government is taking sincere steps to offer maximum facilitation for the enhancement of industrial sector with the special emphasis to create more job opportunity besides offering respectable employment opportunities to the youth.
Regarding Free Trade agreement (FTA) with India, Khan maintained, there was no proposal under consideration to offer status of Most Favourite Nation (MFN) to India but the discriminatory regime would be overcome for the accomplishment of FTA clauses which in turn is a binding on Pakistan according to World Trade Organization (WTO).
He said the issue of terrorism being one of the major impediments on the path of development is being properly taken care of by the government. Due to complexity of the issue it would take much longer to get rid but it is being resolved through dialogue instead of through the use of force.
