Load-sShedding: Govt fails to ensure adequate energy

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) criticised the government for failing to honour the promise of ensuring an uninterrupted power supply during sehr and iftar times. ICCI President Yassar Sakhi Butt said on Monday in a statement that prolonged power outages should not be carried out during Ramazan and the government should at least provide some respite during the holy month of fasting. He said that 12 hours of power load-shedding in the cities and up to 18 hours in rural areas caused immense problems for the masses. He urged the government to resolve the independent power producers’ issues and bring non-operational power plants into the system to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the public during Ramadan as load-shedding was observed every alternate hour during the day. He stressed that its time the government should plan a strategy to check the power theft and corruption in the system which has caused billion of rupees in losses annually.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 24^th, 2012.