Senate session: Tempers run high over Hyderabad power crisis

PPP threatens protest if water crisis in city not resolved.

ISLAMABAD:

The Pakistan Peoples Party warned on Wednesday of dire consequences if the government failed to restore electricity to Hyderabad to end the massive water crisis.

The PPP accused the PML-N led government of bias against Sindh threatening it to hold massive protests in Punjab and Sindh.

After an assurance from the leader of the house, Raja Zafarul Haq in Tuesday’s Senate proceedings, energy crisis in Hyderabad as pointed out by Senator Maula Baksh Chandio was discussed during the Zero Hour.

In his written reply to the house, Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali said that the Sindh government was a defaulter of Rs56 billion, while it had yet to pay Rs27 billion to the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco)

Giving reasons for shutting down several feeders for losses that he put at 98% from the district, he added that the Sindh government refused to recognise 536,000 illegal electricity connections. He said that in his two meetings with the provincial chief minister he was assured that some initial payment would be made and “as soon as the required payment is made, power would be restored,” the minister assured.



He added that he would sit with the leaders of the opposition to restore the water supply to the area but the pending dues would have to be cleared before that.

Sher’s arguments were countered by PPP’s Senator Aitizaz Ahsan who claimed that depriving people of water was a violation of Article 9 of the Constitution, “the masses should not be the sufferers in a tussle between two governments,” he said while staging a walkout in protest. Members of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement followed.

However, the Chairman Senate had to expunge Abid Sher Ali’s remarks that he made against Aitizaz Ahsan on his way out, for which the Minister later apologised.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 15^th, 2014.