Punjab gets more electricity than other provinces, says power minister

Water and Power Minister Naveed Qamar, contradicting any victimisation of the province, on Tuesday said Punjab was being provided with more electricity than any other province.
He said the elements propagating disparity with Punjab on gas and electricity shutdown were in fact manipulating the energy crisis in favour of their political motives. He said the load management was being done in accordance with a set quota of power and gas needs of the provinces, adding that gas outages were observed in Sindh as much as in Punjab and the impression of depriving the people of Punjab was against the reality. The minister said the country was facing acute energy crisis and the nation must unite against all manipulative elements who were trying to disrupt provincial unity. To a question, Qamar said the ministry had no plan to raise power tariff in the near future. About the construction of controversial dams by India, he said Pakistan had formed an organisation to monitor and sort out problems in the arbitration process between Islamabad and New Delhi over the Kishan Ganga Dam. Responding to a query, the federal minister said the government was focusing on maximum utilisation of local resources to operate oil and gas power stations.
He said furnace oil prices were scaling up at the international level which would increase the input costs, ultimately raising the cost of power production.