While the prolonged hours of load shedding are definitely a source of nuisance for residents of Lahore, it is no different for small business owners, who cannot afford generators or alternative energy generation devices, and thus suffer losses.
For instance, Muhammad Sufiyan, a resident of the Baghbanpura area of the provincial capital, who owns a small general store in the locality, told The Express Tribune that unannounced load shedding has completely decimated his already meagre profits. “I cannot afford a generator or a UPS and all the food items in my shop’s refrigerator get spoiled when there’s no power for hours on end,” Sufiyan bemoaned.
Other small store owners in Lahore share Sufiyan’s plight. Mian Akhlaq Ahmed, the owner of a dairy shop in the Gulberg area of the city, said that long power outages are the Achillies’ heel of his business these days. “Milk and curd go bad in this heat if they are not refrigerated properly,” informed Ahmed, adding that if the power was out for an hour or so it would be fine but electricity in Lahore was not available for several hours daily.
“I am currently relying on blocks of ice to save my stock of milk and yoghurt. Buying a generator is not a possibility as the starting price is about Rs 0.2 million; and even if I bought one, I would have to spend Rs 400 to 500 per hour on fuel for the generator during load shedding hours,” he explained, further adding that even if he could afford the added costs, he would have to transfer it to his customers and they would simply start going elsewhere for cheaper dairy products.
President of Lahore’s Milk Sellers Association, Chaudhry Sohail, concurring with Ahmed, said that dairy store owners were the worst affectees of unannounced load shedding for multiple hours daily. “A unit of electricity from a generator costs us about Rs 80 to Rs 90, which means the cost of selling milk, butter, and other dairy products also increases. However, consumers then start complaining of profiteering. This is a miserable situation for us,” complained Sohail.
However, it is not just Sohail who feels this way. The management of a well-known superstore in Lahore, while talking to The Express Tribune said that load shedding had increased their daily expenditure on electricity by Rs 0.3 to Rs 0.4 million. “We have no choice but to raise the rates of all commodities, otherwise this huge fuel bill for generators will put us out of business.”
Published in The Express Tribune, July 18th, 2023.
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