LAHORE:
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced on Saturday a great help for people who affect floods, which ordered electricity distribution companies (disc) that stop immediately collecting electricity bills in August 2025 in areas affected by floods.
By chairing a high level meeting on the subject, the prime minister said that a comprehensive aid package with respect to electricity bills for the affected regions would end and announce after the conclusion of conversations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In addition, he instructed discos to adjust the invoices already paid by consumers affected by floods for August 2025 in the next invoices of the month.
Highlighting the devastation scale, Shehbaz said the floods had displaced and affected millions of people throughout Pakistan. “In this difficult time, we are doing everything possible to relieve the pain of our people,” he added.
He said that federal and provincial institutions were fully involved in rescue and rehabilitation operations. “We will not rest until every victim of the flood has returned home,” he promised.
The rains and torrential floods have caused great losses of life and property in northern Pakistan, Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, as well as Punjab. While flooding levels are now stabilized in Punjab, Sindh remains under threat.
Meanwhile, the Federal Minister of Being Power Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari expressed Saturday to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif for his timely and friendly decision for the people of renouncing electricity bill for the areas affected by floods.
In a statement, the minister said that August Electricity Law had been completely renounced to consumers in the regions affected by floods. He added that the amounts already collected would be reimbursed to people.
“The division of being able to guarantee the immediate implementation of the Prime Minister’s directive,” Leghari said, reaffirming the government’s commitment to provide relief to citizens who face difficulties due to floods.
The Express PAkGazette had reported on Saturday that the Government decided to provide relief in consumer electricity bills and sought the wink of the International Monetary Fund for this purpose.
After the instructions of the Prime Minister, the Ministry held a virtual meeting with the IMF and sought its support for the resignation of the bills, they added.
The Pakistani authorities asked the IMF to postpone the bills for three months with the argument that similar relief had been offered in 2022 in the areas affected by floods. The IMF has sought more data, that the power division would provide within this week.
The sources said that until now the consumers of the Lahore Electricity Supply Company regions, Gujranwala Electric Power Company, Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company and Fine Electric Power Power Company have been negatively affected by the biblical flood. There are possibilities that consumers of the Sukkur electricity company are also affected by floods.
