Altaf Hamid Rao.
Islamabad/ MIRPUR ( AJK), (Parliament Times) : Prime Minister of Azad Jammu Kashmir Chaudhry Anwar ul Haq, while raising the issue of inflated electricity bills vociferously in the recent Senate Standing Committee meeting, has demanded the government of Pakistan to withdraw additional charges imposed on bills of power consumers in Azad Jammu Kashmir.
During the meeting, which was held under the chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwala, the AJK premier said that the additional taxes on electricity bills in Azad Jammu Kashmir should be abolished forthwith, an AJK government handout issued on Thursday said..
Speaking on the occasion, the Prime Minister said that the IMF was not our issue. “The federal government is not paying us our due share and hydro profit”. The Prime Minister said that it was very unfortunate that each year electricity distribution companies levy extra charges on Azad Jammu Kashmir in the name of line losses .Referring to Kashmiris’ love for Pakistan, the PM said that the federal government should not put such a burden on the people of the region that may cause harm to this relationship in future.
The government of Pakistan, he said, had deducted 61 billion rupees from the AJK’s budget on account of payment in arrears but it did not bother to pay a share of 400 billion rupee out of net hydel profits. according to the handout.
Mr. Haq said that a hydel profit sharing agreement was present in the case of one dam but it was missing in the case of the second dam.The PM said that power consumers in Azad Kashmir should be provided electricity at the rate at which the electricity was being generated from the Mangla Dam.
” We do not seek any additional relief”, the PM said, adding that the production cost per unit of Mangla Dam was 3 to 4 rupees while the Neelum Jhelum project was 8 to 9 rupees per unit. Additional taxes, he said, have made the life of consumers miserable.
Referring to the 2003 agreement, the PM said, “We happily agreed to vacate our homes to build dams but despite all this, additional burden is being put on us”. The Prime Minister made it clear that an out-of-box solution was required to tackle the issue of inflated electricity bills across the country.
The AJK PM said that the caretaker government must pay heed to the voice of the people of Azad Kashmir and come up with a solid plan of action to resolve this issue without further delay.