Ijaz Kakakhel Islamabad
After the question hour, the opposition members pointed out lack of quorum in the National Assembly and the Speaker was left with no option but to adjourn the House because the numbers were not complete.
For the last several working days of the National Assembly, it has become routine of the opposition members to point out quorum because majority of them were not interested in legislative process. .
The PTI members themselves were not attending the session, which resulted in adjournment of the House.
Earlier, during the question hours, Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar informed the House that the government was going to shut down some power generation plants, which were unable to provide power when asked for claiming that they were in miserable condition.
Employees working in these power plants were taking their salaries but contribute nothing for the country.
He also said that they would be shifted to other plants. Under Capacity Reduction Strategy, he minister said some of these plants would be shut down permanently.
Through another question, the minister claimed that there has been no load shedding across the country for the last few weeks.
However, in some areas there was load shedding on account of most losses areas and due to poor transmission system.
The minister was of the view that majority areas were confronting the poor transmission system for which the government had already initiated upgradation process.
Hammad Azhar also said that restructuring, reforms, renegotiation of power rates and privatization of all discos were in progress.
More than two-third of residential areas and 100 percent of industrial areas in Karachi are exempted from load shedding, revealed a reply submitted in the NA from the power ministry.
In a written response regarding load-shedding in Karachi during the question and answer session of the National Assembly, the ministry of power said that 78 percent of the residential areas of the city are exempted from outages.
The industrial sector enjoys 100 percent exemption from power outages, the federal ministry, whose portfolio is being held by Hammad Azhar said in its reply.
In another question, a member of the National Assembly expressed serious concern over no response from Supreme Court over a question raised by parliament regarding establishment of Model Courts across the country.
Malika Bukhari informed the House that up till now 13 letters have been sent to SC for various questions but was told that they were not bound to reply of these questions.
