ISLAMABAD, Sept 22: The National Assembly was told on Thursday that the government was determined to take in hand soon the construction of mega dams side by side with the setting up of small and medium dams and hydel power generation stations in the private sector.

In reply to a question during the question hour in the lower house, Minister for Water and Power Liaquat Jatoi said the NWFP was getting its share regularly from the net profits of hydel power generation according to constitutional provisions and the amounts were flowing to the province normally.

He, however, refrained from replying to a question about the amount of arrears accumulated over the years due to nonpayment of a capped amount of Rs6 billion per annum.

He said seven small power generating units were being constructed in the private sector, some of them in the NWFP and others in Azad Kashmir.

He said while over 50 megawatts hydel power generating units were approved by the federal government, the provinces were permitted to construct under 50mg power stations.

Responding to another question, Minister for Labour and Overseas Pakistanis Ghulam Sarwar Khan said 389 children used as camel jockeys in the UAE had been brought home during the last two years.

The house was informed that the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) had suffered a cumulative loss of Rs6,758 million in the first nine months of 2004-05 which came down to Rs588 million after adjustment of government subsidy.

It was further informed that the government had approved a project to reduce the T&D losses and improve the system of the KESC costing Rs13,698 million and the project would be completed by 2006-07.

Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Dr Sher Afghan Niazi rejected allegations by MMA’s Samia Raheel Qazi that a private television channel was screening highly objectionable programme for children.

The MMA lawmaker claimed that she had received messages from children in the name of parliamentarians complaining that the TV channel was showing the programme packed with objectionable material which was a copy of a similar programme aired by a neighbouring country’s television.

In reply to a question, the minister told the house that so far Pemra had issued TV licences to 16 private firms, of which 10 were operational while the remaining were under process of implementation.

To Liaquat Baloch’s reservations on various provisions of Pemra ordinance, which was passed in the absence of the opposition, the minister said since the ordinance had not yet been passed by the Senate it was decided that a 16-member committee would be constituted to make suitable changes to the law.

The minister said the government would take measures to implement the “code of workplace ethics” when the law achieved legal/policy status.

The minister for Safron said 1.047 million Afghan refugees had been repatriated under an agreement signed by Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UNHCR.