KARACHI: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has assured Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah that he would ensure approval of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) as it has already been included in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects.

The prime minister gave this assurance when the chief minister drew his attention towards the KCR which, “despite being cleared by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP), has been facing red tape during the process of approval by Ecnec as its file is shuttled from the federal to the provincial government”.

“This is purely a waste of time,” Mr Shah said. “I want to launch the KCR project by the end of December; therefore, it needs to be approved at the earliest and may also be sent to the Chinese authorities for its formal inclusion in the CPEC.”

Chief minister seeks Abbasi’s intervention in deciding tariff for small power plants

The chief minister, who called on the prime minister in Islamabad on Tuesday to seek his intervention on different pressing issues being faced by the people of Sindh, also pointed out the attitude of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra), which had backed out from its commitment about tariff of small power plants. “After Nepra backed out, the private companies abandoned their plans; as a result Sindh continues to suffer from prolonged outages,” he said.

Talking about abandoned small power plants installed in different districts of the province, the CM said Nepra had decided their tariff when they were being installed but later it backed out from its earlier decision. Therefore, the private companies, which had installed small power plants, have abandoned them.

Chief Minister Shah requested Prime Minister Abbasi to intervene in the matter personally and get the tariff decided. This would help reduce loadshedding locally, he said.

Mr Abbasi assured the CM of his support to resolve the issue.

The meeting between PM Abbasi and CM Shah was held in a cordial atmosphere in which various issues of Sindh with the Center were discussed threadbare, says an official handout released from the CM House.

The chief minister also asked Mr Abbasi for allocation of gas quota for installing a 12MW LNG-based power plant in Karachi, which his government has worked out. “I would be thankful if you [PM] issue necessary instructions to the energy ministry to approve LNG quota for the project. This would help to get the project approved by the CDWP and fixation of tariff for it,” he said and added that the Sindh government would be in need of the prime minister’s support and help for no objection certificate and fixation of tariff by Nepra.

The prime minister said he would encourage installation of power plants. Terming outages a national problem, Mr Abbasi said he would help the provinces to install their power plants.

The chief minister also urged the prime minister to resolve the natural gas issue in the province.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2017