Lahore: Five new members of Punjab Assembly of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) took oath today.

According to details, Speaker Punjab Assembly Chaudhry Perviaz Elahi chaired the 41st session of the House. Speaker Punjab Assembly administered the oath to the newly elected lawmakers.

Five new lawmakers of the PTI, who had been notified by the Election Commission of Pakistan on reserved seats, took oath during the Punjab Assembly session.

The ECP on Wednesday had issued notifications for five reserved seats of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) in the Punjab Assembly following the Lahore High Court verdict.

The ECP had issued notifications for the PTI’s lawmakers Batool Zain Janjua, Saira Raza, Fouzia Abbas Naseem on the vacant seats for women and Habkook Rafiq and Samuel Yaqoob were notified as the lawmakers on the minority seats.

It is pertinent to mention that the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on May 26 de-seated 25 dissident MPAs of the PTI who had voted for PML-N’s Hamza Shehbaz in the election for Punjab chief minister, stating that they had defected from the party.

Islamabad: The government is set to announce a comprehensive National Solar Policy on August 1 to provide cheap and environmental-friendly electricity to the general public.

The decision was taken by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as he chaired a high-level meeting of the Energy Task Force aimed at addressing the problems of energy shortage in the country.

The implementation of the National Solar Policy will be subject to approval by the Council of Common Interests.

The meeting was attended by Federal Minister for Energy Engineer Khurram Dastagir, Finance Minister Miftah Ismail, Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb, Petroleum Minister Mussadik Malik, and the officials concerned. The chief secretaries of four provinces joined the meeting through a video link.

PM Sharif directed the task force to get feedback from the provinces on the draft solar policy and stressed ensuring unanimity of views at the provincial level on the projects of alternative energy generation.

Also, it was decided to shift the Prime Minister’s Office and the PM House to solar energy within one month.

The prime minister said the government was committed to making the country self-reliant in energy generation.

He mentioned that solar power was a clean and green way of electricity generation and said the solar projects would mitigate the issues such as distribution losses, power theft, and circular debt.

PM Sharif said affordable solar power would reduce the burden of inflation on the common man.

The meeting was informed that a proposal for converting the fuel-based powerhouses and the 2,000 feeders of 11 KV to solar generation was on the cards.

Switching the government buildings to solar power generation was also discussed in detail.

It was told that in the next 10 years, solar plants with 1,000 megawatts generation would be installed at the government buildings on a BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) basis.

The meeting also discussed the proposals for B2B (business-to-business) and mini solar grids.

It was highlighted that a plan to convert 30,000 tube wells in Balochistan to solar power was under consideration with a cost of Rs 300 billion.

The meeting also discussed the proposal to provide solar plants to individuals with a facility of net-metering.

Gilgit: Pakistan army, since Wednesday, is coordinating a high risk rescue operation to evacuate stranded mountaineers Shehroze Kashif and Fazal Ali who are stuck at Nanga Parbat.

According to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistan army aviation helicopters and a ground search team comprising high-altitude porters are employed to rescue the mountaineers.

Pakistan army aviation pilots, in a daring attempt, flew two helicopter missions despite bad weather conditions but couldn't pick up the mountaineers due to dense clouds and very high altitude.

Meanwhile, the ground search team is also nearing stranded mountaineers who are currently at Camp-3 at 21000 feet of height.

The army aviation pilots will fly again on Thursday subject to weather conditions as ground team attempt to rescue the mountaineers to Camp-2.