Multanites suffered badly on Monday from unannounced 12 hours power loadshedding, as a result students could not go to school and government employees were also not able to go for their jobs due to non-availability of water. Despite full-blown claims by the government to end power load shedding, the people are still facing massive problems owing to the prolonged and unannounced power outages in the most of the areas of Southern Punjab amidst acute cold weather.
The power outages have also badly affected the business activities in the country. The span of load shedding has been widened from 8 hours to 16 hours extremely racking the citizens in South Punjab cities, including Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan, Rajanpur, Khanewal, Lodhran, Rahim Yar Khan, Sadiqabad, Liaquatpur and Khanpur Katoora. Meantime, the power usually goes off intermittently for 8 to 16 hours in these cities, which has dealt a heavy blow to commercial activities there.
The agriculture is also being adversely impacted owing to the closure of tube wells and other agricultural equipment. Daily 12-hour load shedding has caused the closure of hundreds of Cotton Ginning factories, Rice husking mills, textile mills and thousands of labourers have been forced out of jobs owing to the persisting load shedding-spawned problems.
The protest against unannounced load shedding continued for third day in Multan. Protestors particularly Powerloom owners and workers burnt tyres and blocked several roads of the city in Manzoorabad that caused suspension of traffic. The duration of unannounced load shedding has now exceeded to 16 hours. The protestors demanded immediate halt of unannounced load shedding and proper schedule of power closure. They also demanded less load shedding in industrial areas for the continuation of production activities.