Karachi/Islamabad:

Former Finance Minister and Awam Pakistan Party (app) Secretary General Miftah Ismail fired a breadth against the government’s solarization policy and the tax on net measurement and withdrew the scary return from the Minister of Power Awais Leghari on Thursday.

When he spoke at a press conference in the party’s office in Karachi, Ismail accused the prime minister of taking U-turns on the solarization policy and said the government first encouraged people to install sun meters at home, but now the net measurement was abolished and replaced with gross measurement.

In response, Leghari declared that Ismail’s criticism was based on “false and baseless figures”, adding that due to government policies that Solar Energy has reached 4,000 MW, which would be increased to 12,000 MW in the next eight years.

Ismail told journalists that the government was lied when it said that solar energy users are getting free electricity. “Now the people have been told that VAT would be charged on all units produced through the solar panels,” he added.

“This will increase the electricity bill and the public will not get the benefit of solar energy,” the former finance minister said. “This strategy is a political reversal of the federal government, which is a kind of U-turn,” the AAP leader added.

Ismail claimed that the Pakistani Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) -LED coalition government found ingestion of 1,300 gigawatt-hours electricity from the public or solar energy users a burden, but added that it could not see the waste of electricity during production and distribution.

“In fact, it is only a dozen people in Pakistan, is a burden to the public and the country because they have made electricity very expensive in Pakistan,” he said, and mentioned the purchase of electricity to exorbitant from the independent power producers (IPPS).

Ismail also accused the Government of Price Rise in Sugar. He also threw Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to oppose the channels and said PPP was struggling to save his voting bank. He said people did not get the actual water data.

“I ask my brother Bilawal Bhutto and my sister Maryam Nawaz what happened to your messages during the election campaigns to give free electricity up to 200 and 300 units,” Ismail told the journalists.

Later, in a statement, Leghari said that Miftah Ismail was trying to mislead the people by presenting “false and baseless figures”. He added that the government urged the public to install solar panels. “The contracts with existing grid measurement users will remain according to the old prices,” Leghari said.

“In many countries, the price of network measurement is adjusted so that there is no unnecessary burden on the national network and the economy. With mutual consent and consultation, the IPPS contracts have been reviewed, resulting in the savings of RS1,500 billion,” the minister said.

Last year, the proportion of pure energy in National Grid, including Hydel, Solar, Wind and Nuclear Power, was more than 55%, he continued. In the next few years, the ratio of pure green energy reached 85%. “Pakistan should be proud to have a clean green energy style,” the minister said.