ISLAMABAD: A senate committee asked the government on Wednesday to immediately disconnect power supply to political leaders who had refused to pay electricity bills.

A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Water and Power presided over by Zahid Khan of the ANP unanimously recommended to the government to disconnect power supply to defaulting leaders because they incited lawlessness, but give one month to political workers before severing their connections.

The committee criticised the government, power companies, the ministry of water and power and the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority for issuing inflated bills to consumers and lamented that people were overcharged by an additional Rs70 billion.

They said whoever had issued directives to issue inflated bills should be exposed because distribution companies could not dare do that without the approval of the competent authority. The fact that reports of over-billing, they added, were pouring in from across the country gave credence to the involvement of high-ups.

The senators believe that the main reason behind over-billing or wrong billing is conversion of five slabs into one of 300-700 units. They want that the government should be briefed in the next meeting about the punishment envisaged in the law for over-billing.

The meeting constituted a sub-committee headed by Zahid Khan to investigate the issue of over-billing and matters related to electricity tariff and submit a report within a month.

The committee was informed that the cost of transmission line required for the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project had been estimated at Rs16bn following the bidding process. Three bids have reportedly been received for the project.

The chairman of the committee pointed out that the National Transmission and Dispatch Company had earlier signed an agreement for the project at Rs23bn in violation of procurement rules. The committee intervened because the cost had appeared to be on the higher side and forced rebidding, saving Rs7bn of taxpayers’ money, he added.

Published in Dawn, October 2nd, 2014