President of Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) Khawaja Muhammad Usman on Monday has criticised Mepco for issuing inflated bills for the month of August 2014, and urged the government to conduct a thorough investigation into this matter as more than 60 percent citizens are unable to pay excessive bills. He said industrial workers, employees, salesmen and sanitation staff are getting salaries of 7,000 rupees to 10,000 rupees per month in South Punjab but they had received electricity bills up to 18,000 rupees.
He said inflated electricity bills also creating lot of problems for business and industry resultantly huge increase in cost of production that eventually hampers industrial growth, hurt exports and put unbearable burden on the economic growth. He said the government has made massive increase in power tariff so far. He said Federal Minister for Water and Power has already admitted that electricity charges in Pakistan are higher in the region and making further increase in power tariffs in such scenario is unbearable.