Former Punjab Chief Minister and PML-N senior leader Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif said that up to 20 hours of electricity loadshedding a day has made the lives of people of Punjab miserable apart from crippling the industries across the province.
"Punjab is being discriminated again with regard to power supply even though the tenure of a corrupt federal government has ended and a caretaker set-up is in place," Shahbaz said. He demanded that the interim government must take immediate 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," the PML-N leader said.
Shahbaz 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 Chief Minister demanded that the caretaker Punjab government should also 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 it demand. "But the people of Lahore and other cities of Punjab are getting less than half of available electricity," he added.
Shahbaz 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." He said, "Caring for the textile sector is not only in favour of Punjab but also for the overall economy of the country." He urged the caretaker prime minister to intervene and save the industries from collapse. 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.
It may be noted that the PML-N had demanded that there should be uniform load shedding of electricity and gas across the country and that discriminatory distribution of electricity and gas towards Punjab should be stopped. Shahbaz Sharif in his tenure as Chief Minister had raised the issue of unjust attitude towards Punjab regarding load shedding of electricity at the Council of Common Interests, but consensus decisions of the council have not been implemented so far.
On the other hand, not only millions of labourers are badly affected due to electricity load shedding but the economy is suffering irreparable loss because the country's exports have been affected severely.