Federal Water and Power
Minister Khawaja Asif has said that the country will have to tolerate
loadshedding for several years, though he said that there was an attempt to
avoid loadshedding at the times of sehr and iftar. However, there is simmering
resentment at loadshedding during these times reached the point where four PTI
MPAs held a joint press conference on Sunday, threatening to besiege WAPDA House
Peshawar if the demand for an end to loadshedding was not met.
The MPAs pointed out that the province was producing 4800MW at Rs 0.27 per unit,
but received only 2300MW, and were charged Rs 20 per unit. The federal
government should not think that this press conference is merely the result of a
partisan attempt to stir up sentiment, but should realise that it is a genuine
expression of public resentment, and must be taken seriously. It should be
remembered that Mian Shahbaz Sharif himself, in his previous tenure as Punjab
Chief Minister, had set up his office at the Minar-i-Pakistan as a protest
against the federal government. Hence, in the same tradition, the threat by KPK
Chief Minister Pervez Khattak to join the protests of the people if the problem
was not solved.
At the same time, KPK has not become privileged just by voting in the PTI, and
thus the four MPAs accusing the National Power Control Centre of discriminating
against the province should realise that they are playing with national unity.
Therefore, instead of this, they must ask themselves what they are doing to
help. Prime Minister Mian Nawaz Sharif himself, on his visit on Monday to
Faisalabad, said while talking to the press that there was no timeframe given
for ending loadshedding. That will not go down well with voters, who had voted
on May 14 for a swift end to loadshedding, which the present ruling party
promised, giving the impression that it would bring it to an end within days of
coming to office. The government no longer has the luxury of time, and a public
sweltering in the heat is not likely to forgive the lack of electricity. The
government should not forget that the previous government also completed its
tenure before getting decisively voted out. The people are no longer ready to
trust glib talk, but want to spend their fasts without being totally exhausted
by the heat. The energy crisis is a national issue, and the impulse to play
politics over it must be resisted, but unless the crisis is ended, the
government should be ready for the same fate as its predecessor.