Slight change in working hours can save energy, fuel costs, thinks Asif

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif on Monday suggested having a shortened workweek with longer daily hours to help save fuel and electricity costs in the country.

In a tweet, the minister stated that if a policy of a longer weekend - with Friday afternoons, Saturdays and Sundays off - would be paired with an increase in daily work hours by one, fuel and electricity costs could be reduced significantly.

Asif's tweet comes in the wake of the recently increased petrol prices as well as electricity tariffs. On June 02, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) approved a massive increase of Rs7.91 per unit in the electricity tariffs.

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A day earlier, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader had also stated that tweaking market hours to encourage businesses to operate during the daytime could potentially help save up to 3,500 megawatts of energy.

His comments came after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif held an emergency meeting on June 4 and issued strict instructions to curtail frequent power outages

In a statement on Saturday, Minister Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb said PM Sharif called for an emergency plan to reduce electricity load-shedding within the next 24 hours.

The premier tasked a committee comprising of the minister for energy, petroleum and finance to present an actionable plan soon.

However, due to the widening gap in supply and demand, unannounced load-shedding of eight hours is being carried out in different parts of the country. In areas with line losses found to be high, the duration of load-shedding has reached 12 hours.