Hundreds of workers of Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) took out a procession here on Friday to protest against unchecked price hike of essential commodities of daily use, rising unemployment and retrogressive policies of the ruling elite.
The workers marched through Nisbat Road and Mcleod Road and staged a sit in at the famous Lakshmi Chowk. They were carrying banners in support of their demands and chanting slogans "down with feudalism, capitalism, privatisation, and plunderers of the national wealth. The procession was led by Secretary General Pakistan Wapda electric central labour union, Khurshid Ahmad and other labour leaders namely Malik Noor Muhammad, Syed Sajjad Hussain Shah, Zahid Shah, Osama Tariq, Chaudhry Maqsood, Sajid Kazmi, Shiekh Shoaib, Rana Akram and others.
The workers were of the view that only rich and resourceful people would benefit from the proposed privatisation of public sector entities, including electricity-producing units, 'at the behest of World Bank'. Government should increase electricity production through exploiting vast hydel resources of the country instead of costly rental power plants and private power producers. They, on the occasion, passed a resolution demanding of government to introduce far reaching economic and social reforms in the outdated system which is based upon corruption nepotism and inequalities between the rich and the poor, abolish feudalism and bring profiteers and black marketers and hoarders, that had been fleecing the nation and minting money, to book.
They also demanded that Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) should recover rupees one trillion dues from Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) and other government agencies in order to make the national utility viable. They called upon the working classes to forge unity and strengthen links with other patriotic forces to 'throw away yoke of feudalism and capitalism' and establish an egalitarian society based on equality, fraternity and social justice.