PTI’s Punjab chapter information secretary Andleeb Abbas said the government had lied about the demand and supply gap. PHOTO: EXPRESS
Several Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) activists staged a protest demonstration on Friday against unscheduled load shedding.
PTI’s Punjab chapter general secretary Yasmin Rashid led the protest in front of the Lahore Press Club.
The protesters, carrying banners and placards, demanded that the government end unscheduled load shedding.Rashid said the prime minister and the chief minister were “enjoying” themselves in the UK while the people of Pakistan braved power outages. She said they had made tall claims during the election campaign about ending the power crisis.
“Billion of rupees were spent on the campaign… promising people that load shedding will be overcome.” She said the price of electricity had also been raised.
“Incompetence of the government has forced people to take to the streets. Uninterrupted power is a basic right,” she said.
Opposition leader in the Punjab Assembly Mehmudur Rashid said there had been no respite from power cuts although the government claimed it had spent Rs500 billion on improving the system. Punjab Assembly member Mian Aslam Iqbal said load shedding had affected people’s life and businesses.
“The cost of doing business has seen an increase due to high electricity rates. Several factories have been shut down, rendering a large number of people jobless.”
PTI’s Punjab chapter information secretary Andleeb Abbas said the government had lied about the demand and supply gap. “Earlier, they said the shortfall was 3,000 megawatts… now they say it is 6,000 megawatts.”
She said the government had effected no reforms in the energy sector. She said corruption was rampant in the Lahore Electric Supply Company.“The people have to pay the price in terms of load shedding and high cost of electricity,” she said.
She said the PTI would organise protest demonstrations in all 36 districts of the Punjab.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 3rd, 2014.
COMMENTS (2)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1733312551-0/Untitled-design-(7)1733312551-0-270x192.webp "cm maryam to launch another laptop scheme next month")
I observed people are really satisfied in Punjab.
Shame on Nawaz Sharif & Shahbaz Sjarif ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Failure to reduce load shedding is absolute. Least they can do is apologise to the public.