Lahore: Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, president of the Punjab unit of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has said his party will not tolerate unscheduled power cuts ranging from 16 to 18 hours and will confront the ruling party for its abject failure despite its tall claims that it would solve the country’s power crisis.
Wattoo predicted that the unbearable load-shedding across the country would hasten the government’s exit because the people had lost all hope in the government’s ability to address the situation.
Wattoo said that the previous PPP government had been ensuring three hours uninterrupted supply of electricity at affordable rates so that tube wells meeting irrigation requirements were not affected. The sporadic supply of electricity under the new government had caused acute water shortages and the decline in farm productivity was akin to the economic murder of the farming community, he added.
He said that the energy shortfall of 7,000 megawatts in the country had left people across the country utterly disappointed because the government had miserably failed to narrow down the gap between demand and supply even after one year. This had exposed the government on its claims about controlling the power deficit within months of being in power, he added.
Wattoo claimed the government had been unable to add a single megawatt to the national grid even as the Nandipur Hydel Power Project of Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had proved a disaster of unimaginative proportions in terms of power generation and its competitiveness.
