ISLAMABAD, May 4: The government on Thursday responded to a torrent of protests in the National Assembly over nationwide power cuts with promises of less troubles in the future and hesitatingly agreed to another potentially inflammatory debate on high petroleum prices on Friday.

But the opposition’s criticism of the government’s perceived inefficiency continued even after protests of innocence and some claims of credit by Water and Power Minister Liaquat Ali Jatoi in his speech to wind up three days of a debate on frequent load-shedding in Karachi and other parts of the country.

The usually soft-spoken minister reacted aggressively a couple of times as his assertions that things were better under the leadership of President Gen Pervez Musharraf than under the two preceding civilian governments were challenged by the opposition benches.

The ruling coalition continued to oppose opposition’s adjournment motions seeking a debate on the latest increase in prices of petroleum products, enforced from May 1, but later gave in to the demand.

Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain set Friday for a debate on the issue after hearing arguments from Pakistan Muslim League-N parliamentary leader Nisar Ali Khan and Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal’s Farid Ahmad Piracha in support of opposition’s motions and a statement from parliamentary secretary for the Cabinet Division, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, that the government was opposed to the move but was “ready to listen to their suggestions”.

Winding up the debate on power cuts, Mr Jatoi acknowledged that everything was not fine with the Water and Power Development Authority but “a lot of improvements” had been made in providing services to consumers and supplies to the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation.

The minister, who claimed that the country was surplus in electricity with generation increased to 13,000 megawatts from 9,000MW since had taken over the ministry, said most of the outages were due to maintenance and construction works. He said it was not the usual load-shedding to overcome shortages. He promised to punish Wapda officials if they resorted to “uncalled for suspension” of electricity supply anywhere in the country.

About the Karachi situation, Mr Jatoi defended privatisation of the KESC and said he would “not allow any intrigue” to fail the new management of the corporation. But he said the new management would have to go for expansion to meet an estimated eight to nine per cent annual growth in demand.

The minister denied an opposition allegation that Wapda had increased KESC tariff, clarifying that such actions were recommended by the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority and notified by the government.

He informed the house that the supply situation in Karachi would improve with the operation of a Rs2 billion transmission line from the private Hub Power Company by May 15, which he said would add 500MW to the system.

The KESC was generating 1,102MW compared to a 1,750MW capacity because of breakdown of a plant now being repaired, he said. Wapda, according to him, had been supplying more than 600MW to Karachi in April but could not inject more because of the danger of a breakdown of the antiquated transmission system.