Senate Standing Committee on Planning has directed the National Highway Authority (NHA) to take action to resolve the issue of power outages in the Havelian-Thakot tunnels.
During the panel’s meeting chaired by Junaid Akbar, the committee members expressed anger over the power outages in tunnels. They questioned the authorities who would be responsible if a vehicle passed through the tunnel when the power was cut off. They emphasized that the provision of power supply to the tunnel was an essential task and NHA should resolve the problem as soon as possible.
In response, NHA officials said that there were problems due to power outages and low voltage and new feeders were to be installed for the provision of an uninterrupted power supply.
The committee summoned Chairman NHA and Chief Executive Officer Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) on the issue of power outages in the tunnels.
The committee also considered Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) proposals for the next financial year, however, the members of the committee were not satisfied with the briefing.
The officials proposed a budget of Rs. 12 billion to the committee for 25 ongoing projects, however, the members of the committee were disappointed and questioned the figures saying that the figures presented before the committee were incorrect.
