PESHAWAR: Expressing concern about the excessive power outages in the provincial capital, members of Peshawar’s district council on Wednesday asked the federal government to take appropriate steps for addressing energy crisis with delay.

The demand was made during a session of the district council.

Opposition councillor Shamsul Bari said electricity was produced in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but its supply was controlled in Lahore and therefore, the residents of KP suffered from prolonged, unscheduled power outages.

He asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to fulfil his election promise of empowering provinces by letting them use own resources and said KP should be given its due share in power and gas resources to overcome outages.

Asks federal govt for early resolution of energy crisis

The councillor said the excessive power cuts had driven the people out of their houses to stage protests in hot and humid weather.

Opposition leader in the council Syed Zahir, who belongs to the ANP, regretted that the government didn’t act on the resolutions adopted by the house on the matter time and again and thus, causing a sense of deprivation among councillors.

He flayed the federal government for failing to address energy crisis.

Mr Zahir said the district government seemed ‘least bothered’ about taking up the local residents’ issues with the provincial government despite being pushed by the council many times.

He claimed that many station house officers of Peshawar had rented houses, where innocent people were kept in illegal custody and were tortured.

The opposition leader said the PTI government had claimed to reform the police but the bitter reality was that the police hadn’t changed their unfriendly conduct towards the common man.

He said the Government High School No I, Peshawar, lacked teaching staff and therefore, at least 15 teachers of different subjects should be appointed to it without delay.

Mr Zahir said the government wasn’t interested in furthering the cause of education as it didn’t fill a large number of teacher vacancies in schools across the province to the misery of students.

He also raised questions about the cost of the newly-established food street, its revenue position and benefits for the local residents.

The opposition leader criticised the last PTI government for not executing mega development schemes in the district.

He warned that he would step down as the council member if the district accounts committee’s meeting wasn’t called without delay.

Mr Zahir also demanded the early payment of honorarium to councillors pending for seven months.

Councillor Rahamdil Nawaz of the PML-N called for the holding of early election on the seats vacated by colleagues Safdar Baghi, Razaullah Khan Chagharmatti, Asaf Khan, Kamran Bangash and Zar Mohammad to contest the July 25 polls.

He also said two council seats had been lying vacant for months due to the deaths of members Basit Khan and Saeedur Rehman Safi.

Nazim Mohammad Asim Khan told the house that his government would pay honorarium to councillors ‘very soon’, while the Peshawar SSP would be invited to the house to answer the members’ questions on police affairs.

He said officials of the education department would also attend the next session of the council to respond to the members’ questions.

Earlier, the house unanimously adopted a resolution against an international competition of blasphemous sketches and asked the federal government to raise the issue at the United Nations and other appropriate platforms for steps to check moves meant to hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims.

The members elected on seats reserved for women demanded development funds for their respective areas like male colleagues.

Council convener and district naib nazim Syed Qasim Ali Shah administered the oath to Khurshid Alam, who was recently declared council member by a court.

The councillors also offered fateha for the people, including candidates, who had died in the 2018 general elections.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2018