ECC approves agreements with 46 IPPs, supplementary grant to FBR 

ISLAMABAD: The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) meeting headed by Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has given approval to agreements with the independent power producers (IPPs), ARY NEWS reported.

During the ECC meeting, it was decided in principle to approve agreements with the 46 IPPs and paying off their dues until 30 November 2020.

The government would be able to save Rs836 billion from the agreements with the IPPs after they get a final nod from the federal cabinet.

On February 02, the incumbent government of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) reached another milestone, after talks with six more independent power producers (IPPs) for cheaper electricity in the country remained successful.

According to the details, the government team had successful deals with six new IPPs for affordable electricity. So far 47 IPPs with an overall production capacity of 7450MW electricity have agreed to sign the agreement with the government for a cheaper power supply to the consumers.

Besides this, the ECC meeting also approved a supplementary grant of Rs350 million to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), which would be used for placing cameras at the sugar mills in order to monitor their activities.

It is pertinent to mention here that the FBR had given a deadline to sugar mills for installing video cameras till January 15 in order to ensure real-time monitoring of sugar production.

On October 1, the FBR had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) for real-time video monitoring of sugar production after issuing Video Analytics Rules 2020 to initiate surveillance of specified goods.