ISLAMABAD: After a six-day debate, the National Assembly unanimously decided on Monday to set up a special house committee to examine the causes of power shortages and recommend remedies even though the government said there were hardly any outages now after it tackled the recent crisis that provoked nationwide protests.

A motion adopted by the house on a proposal from the PML-N, to which the PPP agreed, authorised Speaker Fehmida Mirza to name the committee soon in a consensus that came despite bitter uproars over two unrelated matters and in a marked contrast to daily PML-N walkouts during the previous fives days of the debate and sit-in outside the presidency to protest against intense power cuts, or loadshedding, in the past week.

The day’s uproars were a controversial political role adopted by former Sindh home minister Zulfikar Ali Mirza over the affairs of Sindh province and allegations by the government-allied Muttahida Qaumi Movement of persecution of an estranged wife of a PML-N lawmaker and son of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

The speaker, who chaired the proceedings for the first time after absence for the past few days due to an official visit to Malaysia, kept her usual poise in the face of some highly critical remarks of two MQM members against Dr Mirza, her husband, who got support for his challenge to the MQM over the affairs of Sindh despite last week’s return of the party to the PPP-led coalition.

After Water and Power Minister Naveed Qamar, who asked for an early cut-off date for the recommendations of the special committee while winding up the debate with an explanation of a turnaround in power generation within days to over 14,000MW from a suddenly dropped level of 7,000MW and the government’s future plans, the speaker asked all parties in the house to give her names of their nominees for the body so it could present its report at the start of the next session of the house due to begin on Nov 14.

“Today we can say there is none (of), or hardly any power outages anywhere in the country,” the minister remarked while explaining the government’s handling of the situation blamed on a combination of problems that he said had been tackled with improvement in river inflows to hydro-electric dams, a partial payment of arrears worth Rs11 billion to two private power companies to ensure oil supplies to them and restart of two nuclear plants, one of which had tripped and other closed for refuelling.

But he made it clear the present relief was temporary and said there was still need to enhance capacity because the demand would rise to between 17,000-19,000MW in summer.

“All our problems have not gone away,” he said while warning against complacency, and noted what he called “lack of governance” within the power distribution companies, which he would have to fend for themselves with reformed managements after the planned dissolution of the Pakistan Electric Power Company in the next 10 to 15 days.

Among projects for the future, he cited the Diamer-Bhasha dam on the river Indus, whose foundation stone is due to be laid on Oct 18, encouragement of privately-run wind power projects, some of which he said should start generation within 18 months before the present government runs out its five-year term in 2013, and coal-fired projects to be run initially with imported coal and later with coal extracted from the Thar area in Sindh.

The implementation of all these projects and the ideas that the new house committee might come up with, he said, would help the country not only to close the present gap between supply and demand but also go beyond to see national growth “in leaps and bounds”.

Earlier, the MQM marked its return to the house after the absence of some days it took for a reconciliation with the PPP by sparking the first uproar of the day when its member Asif Hasnain accused the PML-N’s provincial government in Punjab of punishing what he described as an estranged wife of PML-N lawmaker Mohammad Hamza Shahbaz Sharif by instituting criminal proceedings against her and influencing an anti-terrorism court.

MQM parliamentary leader and Minister for Overseas Pakistanis Farooq Sattar added fuel to the fire by taking up the issue even more vociferously, and inviting more PML-N shouts, despite an advice from PPP chief whip and Religious Affairs Minister Khurshid Ahmed Shah to avoid raising members’ personal matters, before the speaker adjourned the house for Maghreb prayers.

PML-N parliamentary leader Sardar Mehtab, who led the protests from his party, was once heard saying “we don’t want to hear this ‘bakwas’ (foolish talk)” as he asked the chair to switch off Mr Sattar’s mike, which was done more than once.

Tempers on both sides seemed to have cooled down when the house reassembled after the break for prayers, but more was to come at the fag end of the sitting after a PML-N member, Shirin Arshad, asked why the government was not taking action on some charges made by Dr Mirza with an oath of the holy Quran, only to provoke an angry outburst from MQM’s Waseem Akhtar, who said the former minister should be arrested under the Maintenance of Public Order ordinance for allegedly threatening law and order in Karachi.

And after a member of the government-allied Awami National Party, Bushra Gohar, used some words of praise for Dr Mirza by saying he had substantiated his charges with some proofs and another PML-N member, Ms Qudsia Arshad, said “I salute Zulfikar Mirza”, another retort came from MQM back-bencher, Sajid Ahmed, who said “all those who tried to liquidate the MQM themselves perished and the MQM is still there”.

From the PPP benches, only veteran party parliamentarian Zafar Ali Shah expressed support for Dr Mirza by advising members against making allegations against persons who cannot respond in the house.

No remarks from either side were expunged before the house was adjourned until 5pm on Tuesday.