The former Chairman of Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) and former Senior Vice President of LCCI Abdul Basit has demanded formation of a high-powered commission to identify the actual reasons behind the acute power shortage. In a statement, he said that over 15 hours of power outages in the urban and 20 hours load-shedding in rural areas due to over 6000MW shortfall in the demand and supply, has not only ruined the economy but has also pushed the industrial sector towards bankruptcy.
He said that such a huge load shedding is giving an impression of some conspiracy as the electricity shortfall is 36 percent of the entire demand, while the existing load shedding is equal to 70 percent of demand, which is not logical. He said it seems that some people at the helm of affairs are utilising their energies to create panic in the country. He said that according to an estimate, over 68000 industrial units are situated in Punjab only; from which 14,820 are textile units, 6,778 are ginning units, 7355 are agriculture raw material processing units and 39,033 are different kinds of large and small scale industrial units.
He said that these units use electricity and gas as fuel. He maintained that most of these industrial units have closed down their operations due to the horrifying unscheduled and scheduled load shedding, while the remaining are on the rim of entire collapse. He said that millions of industrial workers have lost their employment and their families were compelled for starvation; but no concrete measures have been made. He said that the destruction was not limited to Punjab, but the national economy was feeling the heat as most of the export-oriented industries were situated in Punjab.
He said that new investment is extremely important for the economy of any country in these circumstances, when a local investor was not ready to invest a single rupee. Abdul Basit said that lack of supply of furnace oil to the oil-operated power generating units was one of the biggest reasons of electricity crisis. He urged the government to ensure sufficient oil supply to the oil-operated power generating units so that they could run on their full capacity. He said that, 30 years ago, Pakistan was producing 70 percent of energy from hydroelectric resources and 30 percent from the oil, while the current situation is reverse. He said that a country, already facing economic impoverishment, could not afford generating electricity through oil when oil prices in the international market had crossed $110.
