Year: 2020

ISLAMABAD: While hurling accusations of data fudging on Distribution Companies (Discos), the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has asserted that existing setup is unable to deliver, recommending independence of Discos from Power Division’s control with complete financial controls. The regulator, in its report performance evaluation report of Discos and KE 2018-18 as compared to 2014-15 through 2017-18, has also observed that Discos has inflicted financial loss of Rs215.5 billion to the national during this period by breaching different targets. The Nepra being a regulator has been advising and directing…

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In July 2019, Gregory Dipple, a geologist at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, hopped on a 119-seat charter flight in Yellowknife, Canada, and flew 280 kilometers northeast to the Gahcho Kué diamond mine, just south of the Arctic Circle. Gahcho Kué, which means “place of the big rabbits” in the Dënësu¸łinë language of the region’s native Dené or Chipewyan people, is an expansive open pit mine ringed by sky-blue lakes. There, the mining company De Beers unearths some 4 million carats’ worth of diamonds annually. But Dipple and two…

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During the last nine years, the federal government has collected Rs818 billion as Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC), however, it has failed to invest the collected amount towards improving and building the country’s gas infrastructure. According to well-placed sources, the volume of collectable GIDC from various sectors was increased to Rs517 billion on March 31, 2020. However, till now none of the GIDC reserves have been utilised for the purpose they were collected for.  According to documents, the previous government collected Rs295 billion as GIDC and employed it for budgetary…

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