No power, no business!

Protesting against the outrageous load shedding in the province, the traders and business community on Saturday observed a complete shutter down strike in Punjab.
Business activities in major cities, including the provincial capital Lahore, industrial hubs Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala and many other cities and towns across the province came to a halt as the business and traders community joined together on the call of the All Pakistan Traders Union to observe the strike. Markets remained closed while there were widespread protests.
In Rawalpindi, markets of the city and cantonment area remained closed during the protests, while in some areas traders and general public vented their anger by burning tyres, blocking roads and chanting slogans against the government. The police, however, brought the situation under control and reopened the roads. Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Vehari, Mailsi, and Sialkot faced the same situation. The people protested by burning tyres and damaging private and public property. Many cars of the passers-by were also damaged in Lahore.
Many urban areas are facing severe lack of services and amenities that depend on electricity. Chief among them is water, which has gone scarce due to extreme power outages. With the sweltering heat, the demand of water automatically rises up. People have been forced to make alternate arrangements as government provided amenities have failed in delivering. The leaders of the business community said that all traders expressed unity for making the protest successful and they thanked their community for cooperation. They claimed that some of government’s representatives misled traders community as they posted banners against traders unions. They said that the government has elected Raja Parvez Ashraf as prime minister who was corrupt and was involved in rental power plants case. Our country had enough resources but government was not interested in ending power the crisis, they claimed.
They suggested the government to utilise the services of scientists to exploit resources to overcome the current scenario.
The strike and violent protests did hurt the public in other ways. A halt on business activities means that many daily wagers will sleep on empty stomachs while patients in hospitals will also face severe difficulty in purchasing medicines. Adding to the public’s difficulty was the transporters’ decision to join in the strike, putting millions of travellers in trouble.
The situation was the same in the south Punjab. There were protests in Rahim Yar Khan, Bahawalpur, Haroonabad, Dera Ghazi Khan and Layyah. In Jhelum, a complete shutter down strike was observed while they also besieged WAPDA office. The situation was no different in other provinces of the country as well. The protesters blocked main road, leading to Quetta, in Ziarat because of load-shedding for over 18 hours. Traders are on a strike for the consecutive third day in Bagh district of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.
The energy meeting: To control the situation and increase the generation of electricity, an energy meeting was held under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Ashraf here last night at the PM House in which it was decided that the Ministry of Petroleum will ensure the supply of 28,000 tones fuel oil daily to power sector to add 1,200 MW in the national grid system.
It was also decided to provide 15mmcfd to GTPS, Faisalabad, which would add another 65 mw in the national grid leading to ease up the pressure. The meeting also discussed to provide 100 mmcfd additional supply of gas to Karachi Electricity Supply Corporation to produce 300 mw which could help KESC in reducing their off-take from the national grid of equal quantity of power, making it available to the national grid improving the supply of electricity.
The allotted gas will be provided to the power sector by suspending its supply for one more day to the industrial and the captive power sectors in Punjab, thus sparing the 66 mmcfd of gas for use in the most efficient power plants to produce electricity.
Similarly, 150mmcfd gas is proposed to be saved in the province of Sindh by cutting its supply for one more day from the industrial and the CNG sectors which will be used by KESC for power generation.
In the meeting, it was also decided to constitute two committees consisting of, Minister for Water and Power Chaudhry Ahmed Mukhtar, Minister for Information Qamar Zaman Kaira, Minister for Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain and Minister for Kashmir Affairs Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo to hold negotiations with the representative of the Punjab industries and CNG sector in an attempt to convince them to agree to one more day cutting of the gas supply in view of the acute requirement of gas in the power sector.
The other committee consisting of Minister for Finance Dr Hafeez Shaikh, Minister for Religious Affairs Syed Khurshid Shah and Minister for Petroleum Dr Asim Hussain will hold talks with the governor Sindh and chief minister Sindh to take into confidence all the stakeholders for reduction of gas supply.