On Friday, officials were ordered by the Lahore High Court to turn Multan into a “green city” in order to lessen the consequences of environmental pollution.

On Tahir Jamal’s petition, LHC Justice Jawad Hassan rendered a thorough decision.

In order to have its own 2020 order put into effect, the petitioner had prayed before the court.

The responsible officials were instructed by the court to create a strong plan for turning Multan into a green city.

All departments were instructed to designate spokespersons by the LHC.

All parties involved in this matter must be consulted, according to the specified instructions.

A long-term strategy is needed to address Multan’s environmental contamination and declining AQI, according to Justice Jawad Hassan.

Every department was ordered by the court to provide a report on a monthly basis.

The written directive stated that Multan’s efforts to address the pollution were insufficient.

The director general of PHA Multan told the court that 14,825 trees were planted in the city in 2024.

According to the director general of PHA, DG Khan, 28,471 trees were planted in 2024.

10,560 trees were planted in private housing societies by the Multan Development Authority, it was further said.

The court ordered that the matter be heard on the first Tuesday of each month.

Owais Leghari, the federal minister of energy, disclosed that power rates are already falling as a result of renegotiations with independent power providers (IPPs), with more substantial relief possible.

After the agreements are finalized, the minister tells the National Assembly’s Power Committee that power rates could drop by Rs 10–12 per unit.

Leghari revealed that IPP-imposed capacity charges account for 75% of electricity expenses. “The public is being affected by the revision of these agreements,” he said, adding that agreements with 12 IPPs—including those that use bagasse—had been examined and negotiations for 15 more have been concluded.

“These changes will be approved by the cabinet next week, and within a month, decisions about captive power plants will be made,” he continued.

“The minister also announced that eight bagasse power plant adjustments have been approved and that five IPP contracts have been terminated. 16 more IPPs, including government-owned facilities, are now in talks. These renegotiations have already resulted in an electricity pricing reduction of Rs 4 per unit for domestic consumers.

Leghari addressed the issue of electricity theft in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and charged that the provincial government had not cooperated in spite of previous agreements. Before agreeing to cut off illicit connections, he disclosed that the KP chief minister had insisted on an unfettered supply of electricity to feeders with high rates of theft.

Leghari stated, “We carried out this agreement for 75 days, but the provincial administration did not take down the hooks, which cost our company an additional Rs 6 billion.”

Concerns about the continuous load shedding in KP were voiced by members of the load shedding and K-Electric tariff committee, which led to additional talks. “We do not believe that the proposed tariff is justified,” Leghari said, criticizing K-Electric’s multi-year tariff as a significant burden on consumers.

Walkout
At the meeting, committee members Shehryar Mehr, Sher Ali Arbab, and Junaid Akbar walked out in protest of a plan to discuss electricity supply company issues in Hyderabad and Sukkur behind closed doors.

In particular, by renegotiating contracts with IPPs and resolving inefficiencies, the energy minister reiterated the government’s commitment to reducing the financial burden on consumers through energy sector reforms.

On Thursday, the Ministry of Religious Affairs declared that applications for the government Hajj program’s remaining quota will once again be accepted.

The ministry made this choice in an effort to guarantee that the entire quota is used and to prevent sending any seats back to Saudi Arabia that are not used.

On a first-come, first-served basis, an extra 5,000 pilgrims will be allowed to apply starting next week.

These applications will be accepted during a designated timeframe; the ministry is now considering a proposal to restrict the submission period to five days.

Under the Hajj program, the government had previously received 81,500 applications; the decision to accept additional pilgrims is intended to provide those who were unable to reserve a seat in the first round of applications a chance.

To further streamline the procedure and guarantee efficiency and justice, no lottery will be held for the new applications, in contrast to the previous one.

Officials stressed that this action is meant to guarantee that no chance to bring pilgrims to the Holy Land is missed, in addition to optimizing the quota distribution.