Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has said that provision of relief to the people, who are undergoing agonising load shedding, poverty and inflation, is of utmost importance. He said Punjab government had chalked out a plan to provide solar panels to the poor families and biogas units to the small farmers for operationalisation of their tube wells.
He disclosed that the programme of providing solar panels to the poorest families would be initiated from South Punjab, adding the solar panel would operate one fan and two electric bulbs. The CM said that planning had been made to install coal energy plants through public-private partnership in industrial estates throughout the province. The CM was presiding over a meeting here on Thursday at his Tent Office, Minar-e-Pakistan to review the pace of development of energy related projects in the province.
Senator Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa, Provincial Agriculture Minister Ahmad Ali Aulakh, Members National and Provincial Assembly, Chairman Planning & Development, Secretaries of various departments, energy experts and investors attended the meeting.
Addressing the meeting, Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said energy crisis had negatively impacted all sectors of life and had deprived citizens of their sleep and peace, therefore, in these circumstances provision of immediate relief to the people had become essential.
The CM said that provision of solar panels to the poor families would be made through transparent balloting, and similar method would also be adopted for biogas units distribution among the small farmers. The CM directed that methodology of distribution of solar panels and biogas units should be evolved so that the programme could be implemented at the earliest and negotiations initiated with reliable and best companies for purchase of solar panels. He disclosed that quota of South Punjab with regard to provision of biogas units to small farmers would be 10 percent higher and, initially, 1,000 biogas units would be distributed.