Piling on misery: Shahbaz Sharif slams blackouts in Punjab

Urges caretaker provincial set-up to take up the matter with federal government.


April 10, 2013
Former Cheif Minister Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif Urges caretaker provincial set-up to take up the matter with federal government.

LAHORE:


Former Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has said that up to 20 hours of load-shedding a day has made the lives of people of Punjab miserable and crippled industries across the province.


“Punjab is being discriminated with regards to power supply even though the tenure of a corrupt federal government has ended and a caretaker set-up is in place,” the former chief minister said in a statement. He demanded that the interim government take notice of this situation and take steps to end Punjab’s grievances.

“The people of Punjab are as good Pakistanis as those who are living in other provinces. It is, therefore, the constitutional and moral obligation of the sitting government to end this discrimination,” he said.

Shahbaz Sharif said that being a chief minister he had stood with the people of Punjab in their protest against load shedding.

“We have served people while working in tent offices in simmering weather conditions. I will again be with my people this summer,” he said.



The former CM demanded that the caretaker Punjab government take up the issue of power cuts with the federal government so that grievances of people could be addressed.

He said that according to figures given by WAPDA officials, there is one-third shortfall in power supply against its demand. “But the people of Lahore and other cities of Punjab are getting less than half of available electricity,” he added.

Shahbaz Sharif said that power supply to the textile industry in Punjab has been suspended for one shift, adding, “The authorities concerned are mulling the suspension of electricity supply to other shifts as well.”

“Caring for the textile sector is not only in favour of Punjab but also for the overall economy of the country,” the former CM said.

He urged the caretaker prime minister to intervene and save the industries. He said that WAPDA has disrupted power supply to industries on the pretext of accommodating domestic consumers but a PML-N worker from a Faisalabad village told him that his area was braving up to 22 hours of power outages.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2013. 

COMMENTS (2)

Humble Pie | 10 years ago | Reply

@Shahbaz Sharif:

Please read the 18th amendment before blaming everything on Federal government.

"The people of Punjab are as good Pakistanis as those who are living in other provinces. It is, therefore, the constitutional and moral obligation of the sitting government to end this discrimination"

The people of other part of Pakistan were as good Pakistanis before the 18th amendment. Punjab enjoyed the resources compared to other provinces which were produced in those provinces. After 18th amendment, it had been agreed that the producer of resource will get first priority. The same is the reason for gas loadshedding in Winter. So if a resource is limited then someone has to suffer.

and if you really feel the pain of people from Punjab then you should have invested in power projects rather than the Metro Bus service. Metro is a good service but it would have been better that you had spent the capital on the welfare of whole province and investing in power projects was the best bet.

Good luck with your election campaign.

Asif Nawaz | 10 years ago | Reply

18th Amendment dude, 18th Amendment. Priority should have been given to Electricity not Metro Bus. But you needed something to flash your Election campaign with, right? Stop this drama now.

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