KARACHI: The federal government appears reluctant to address concerns of Sindh and the other provinces pertaining to oil and gas matters and a proposed power generation policy for the year 2015, as a crucial meeting with representatives of the provinces for the purpose has been postponed thrice, the last time for an indefinite period, it emerged on Tuesday.

Sources told Dawn that the Council of Common Interests (CCI) that met on March 18 decided that concerns of the provinces on these issues would be resolved within `10 days` and the prime minister issued directions to the InterProvincial Coordination Committee (IPCC) to call a meeting of the chief ministers to address the same.

Representatives of the provinces raised their concerns over the issues in the IPCC meeting held on March 31 when it was decided that the ministry of petroleum and natural resources would hold a meeting with Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa representatives on April 7 to resolve the issues. The ministry wasexpected to formulate its recommendations within 15 days, according to the minutes of the meeting reviewed by Dawn.

But the meeting, which was scheduled for April 7, was initially postponed till April 10 and then again till April 16. But before it could materialise, the IPCC informed the provinces that it had been postponed for an indefinite period, sources said.

About Sindh`s concern over power generation, the sources said that Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah, who represented Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah in the IPCC meeting held on March 31, expressed concern over the overall power supply situation and raised concerns about the proposed powergeneration policy 2015.

The finance minister proposed that the federal government issue guarantees for the provincial power projects as the Sindh government couldn`t issue guarantees in accordance with the Constitution, the minutes of the meeting indicated.

The minister also demanded that the provinces be authorised to determine tariff for the provincial power projects instead of Nepra.The KP chief minister expressed his concerns over `long duration of loadshedding` and recalled the assurance given by the prime minister for observing `six to eight hours [of power] loadshedding` He also reportedly gave assurance to the Centre to bring about improvement in the recovery and efHciency of the power distribution system.

The Balochistan chief minister stated that his province needed 1,500 megawatts of electricity and demanded allocation from the Uch power plant etc. He also said that the committees led by deputy commissioners had been set up to improve power dues recovery.

Highlighting salient features of the `power generation policy 2015`, the water and power secretary contended that the provinces had been given greater opportunity in the field of power generation that he hoped would provide `space for new fuels like imported coal and LNG having different supply chain dynamics from conventional fuel for power generation,` according to the documents.

The secretary believed that this power policy would likely to address `current energy crises, liquidity issues of the power sectors and delayed payment topower producers`.

`This power policy offers enhanced incentives to bridge the demand and supply gap in minimum possible time through generation of affordable energy for socio-economic uplift of the country, he argued.

The policy, which was evolved following the 18th Amendment and the subsequent CCI decision, will `devolve the power to provinces for planning and execution of power projects to a large extent`, he said.

The secretary said the proposed power policy would also `remove the ambiguity about the role of provinces/AJK/GB and will help enabling policy cover to the power projects based on coal and imported gas`.

After the deliberations, the IPCC decided that the ministry of water and power would `finalise` the power generation policy 2015 by `incorporating the amendments proposed by the representatives of the provincial governments` the documents showed.

It was also decided that the `finalised policy` would be sent to the provinces immediately.

About oil and gas matters highlightedin the IPCC meeting, Sindh Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah raised the issues pertaining to `regasiffied liquefied natural gas` (RLNG) and its utilisation, promulgation of gas infrastructure development cess ordinance 2014 and import of LNG and its utilisation and collection of royalty of mineral oil and natural gas by the provinces`.

The minister reportedly complained that `most of the matters relating to gas are being deliberated upon at the forum of ECC and the Cabinet Committee on Energy instead of CCI`. He also said the representation of the provinces did not existin the saidfora.

The IPCC decided that the ministry of petroleum and natural resources would hold a meeting with the representatives of the Sindh and KP governments on April 7, resolve the issues of gas highlighted by the provinces and formulate recommendations within the next 15 days.

It was further decided that if the issues of the provinces relating to gas were not resolved at the IPCC level, the same would be placed before the CCI in its next meeting, according to the minutes of the meeting.