It seems that neither the federal government nor the provincial governments of the Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwah and Balochistan, irrespective of which political parties or coalition of parties are in power, are interested in or concerned with the peoples welfare?
This is so because electricity loadshedding has not only lingered on but also worsened in recent weeks to the extent that the suffering people have been forced to come out in protest on the roads and streets and there have been violent riots also in different parts of the country.
For resolving this chronic lingering problem of electricity load shedding a quite feasible formula was presented by veteran politician and PML(Q) President Ch Shujat Hussain some days back. In the said formula, which has since come to be known as Shujat Formula, the provinces were asked to make contributions out of their NFC Award share for couple of months so that the mounting circular debt of the IPPs could be paid and all power units could restart generation of electricity to the maximum of their installed capacity to rid the people of this national problem and ensure much needed relief to them.
It was again presented in the National Energy Conference, held in Lahore couple of days back, by PML(Q) Secretary General Mushahid Hussain Sayed on behalf of the party chief Ch Shujat Hussain. The energy moot was presided over by the prime minister and participated by the chief ministers of the four provinces among others.
It was presented in a more detailed manner, as reports appearing in the media said, and it was expected that the federal and provincial governments would give a positive and instant response to this there and then and announce their proposed contributions out of the NFC Award share thus making the balls rolling and ensuring the electricity load shedding ending couple of months and industry wheels start rolling again in full strength. But it was rather shocking and surprising to note, as mentioned in reports about the energy moot coverage by the newspapers, that the Shujat Formula was not taken quite enthusiastically by the stakeholders as expected and instead they made negative remarks.
Through the formula, the provinces were asked to contribute a total amount of Rs 150 billion out of their NFC Award share and even this was to be returned to them by the federal governments after sometime. Cutting the long sad story short, it seems that neither the federal government nor the provincial governments are interested in or concerned with the peoples welfare contrary to all their very tall claims in this respect. Since, there was no other feasible solution presented in the energy moot to end the electricity loadshedding, except that the suffering on this account would be equitable for all provinces, so the people should be ready for continuously bearing this lingering chronic and highly unproductive problem in an unending manner for many more months. The situation is bound to even worsen further in the coming summer months.
AHSAN A HAQ SHAIKH
Lahore