Sharjeel for action against power companies not acting on PA body’s recommendations

Sindh Senior Minister for Information, Transport and Excise & Taxation Sharjeel Inam Memon has warned the three power distribution companies in Sindh — K-Electric (KE), Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) — to act upon the recommendations of the Sindh Assembly’s committee constituted to address electricity woes of the concerned consumers in the province.

Speaking at the Sindh Assembly during the question hours of the session on Wednesday, he said action should be taken against the three power companies as per the law if they do not follow the recommendations of the assembly’s committee.

He said the committee constituted by the House had the mandate to resolve the consumers’ issues concerning the KE, Hesco and Sepco.

He urged the Sindh Assembly speaker, Syed Awais Qadir Shah, to issue a ruling to ensure the implementation of the committee’s recommendations. He said the heads of the three power distribution companies should also be summoned to the House for the purpose.

Meanwhile, answering queries raised by concerned legislators, the Sindh senior minister told the House that only certified charities were exempted from tax in the province.

He explained that several reforms had been introduced and revolutionary steps taken by the Sindh government to improve the working of the provincial excise department. He said that for the payment of taxes, people waited for their turn in queues in an air-conditioned environment with drinking water available.

Memon maintained that efforts had been made to introduce an online payment option for all the provincial taxes so that people were no longer required to visit the offices of the excise department for tax payment. He added that a cashless system would also be introduced at the excise department under which tax could be paid at any bank branch.

The excise and taxation minister said the Sindh government would ensure that no vehicle without a registration number plate could be driven on the roads in Sindh. He added that a car-carrier trailer would always be used to transport the vehicles belonging to other provinces upon their arrival at the Karachi Port.

Answering a query, he said the recent auction of a single premier registration number plate of a vehicle had fetched up to Rs100 million. He said the proceeds from the auction of premier registration plates would be used to reconstruct houses for the flood victims in the province.

Memon, who also holds the portfolio of the provincial transport department, said the terminals of inter-city bus service in Karachi had been removed. He said the shuttle bus service had been launched to transport passengers to and from these terminals now situated outside the city.

He claimed that the Sindh transport department had been doing its best to resolve the traffic woes in the city.

Answering a question, he told the House that there was a ban on the Qingqi rickshaws but they were still operating in the city because of a stay granted by the court on a petition filed by the association of rickshaw operators.

He also told the House that the federal government and the Anti-Narcotics Force had been lending fullest support to the ongoing drive in the province against drugs. A crackdown had been launched to purge universities of the menace of drugs as some employees had also been arrested under the same campaign, he said.

Graveyards

The Sindh Assembly was also informed that the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation charged only Rs300 as its fee for allotting a grave in the city’s cemeteries.

Parliamentary Secretary for Local Government Department Qasim Siraj Soomro passed the information to this effect while responding to a call-attention notice moved by a lawmaker of Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P), Jamal Ahmed, about plight of graveyards in the city.

Soomro told the House that another sum of Rs 14,000 was paid to the gravedigger who took care of the graves at a cemetery. He said that the Sindh government was trying to ensure the implementation of these official rates for graves.

The parliamentary secretary, however, conceded that the city required more graveyards due to the increase in its population. The proposal for constructing new cemeteries in the city was pending with the provincial cabinet, he said.

While speaking on his call-attention notice, the MQM-P MPA said that cemeteries in Karachi should display the official fee charged for allotting a grave. He claimed that certain unscrupulous elements that controlled the cemeteries in Karachi charged up to Rs150,000 for allotting a single grave.

He demanded that the number of cemeteries in the city be increased given the unsatisfactory conditions in the existing graveyards.