Federal Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif on Saturday said the government needs load shedding problem could take not weeks or months, but years to tackle power load shedding.
Talking to reporters, Asif said the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had five years to resolve this issue, but they wasted it. He said, “Our first priority was to reduce the duration of load shedding.”
He said that he would be able to review the real situation within four days.
Meanwhile, he said the duration of load shedding would be cut short in Ramazan.
Asif said he would be making sincere efforts to resolve this issue.
However, the minister refused to give any deadline for ending the menace of load shedding.
He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif would be announcing the energy policy in the next few days detailing plan to end the energy crisis. He said competent officers would be given responsibilities and all decisions would be based on merit.
Earlier, on arrival at the ministry, he was briefed about the energy situation and steps taken to minimise the impact.
Separately, talking to a private TV channel, Asif said the government had designed and finalised strategy to resolve the energy shortage issue.
He said, “Our first priority is to reduce the hours of load shedding to provide relief the common man especially in the holy month of Ramazan.”
He said domestic consumers would be given preference followed by the industrial units. The minister said that equal load shedding will be carried out in all parts of the country.
Khawaja Asif was born on August 9, 1949 in Sialkot. He previously served as the minister for petroleum and natural resources, with additional portfolio of sports ministry in prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s cabinet.
Before getting into politics, he lived in the UAE for several years, and worked in several banks. Later, he quit and moved back to Pakistan in 1991, shortly before the death of his father, and took his place in politics, he was elected to Senate.
In 1993, he resigned from senate and contested and won National Assembly seat from Sialkot.
In 2013 elections, he was elected for the fifth term as a member of the National Assembly on a PML-N ticket and was appointed Federal Minister for Water and Power by the Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif.
He was previously elected as an MNA for in the years 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2008.
In the Nawaz Sharif cabinet of 1997-1999, Khawaja Asif held the portfolio of Privatisation Commission chairman, with the status of a federal minister. He is married with three daughters and a son.
Maybe he should talk to Shahbaz Sharif because during the election campaign he told us that he had the secret to solving the power crisis.
the current situation demands a separate portfolio just for Electric power , and headed by a technical person who is familiar with the system and the problems. Some one like a retired chief engineer. The chosen person was a banker and can hardly understand the problems let alone solving them. Not a good start, being familiar with electric utility equipment and systems, the best Pakistan can do at this time is to fix what can be fixed immediately and work on an extended plan as the money gets available. Bottom line is in about 5 years time , there can only be a marginal improvement. Elimination of complete load shedding is about 25 years away, assuming continuous upgrades are done. All of this takes lots of money, which the goverment does not have. the current situation is that there is no fuel, neither gas nor coal. If the fuel becomes available, then some relief can be provided. The history of Mian brothers is that they are neither dynamic, nor smart. They manipulate very well to win elections , the rest of their work is not much to write about. May Allah make it easy for all. Ameen.
Question is that comes to mind is why could they not do it in Punjab while they had 5 years of provincial government. I know personally Shahbaz Sharif called the WAPDA staff in one of the villages in Dist. Sialkot and told them to start load shedding – because they did not do any load shedding/sharing as they had enough electricity. This is how they manipulated the condition to put it on Fed. Govt. to make them look bad and now suddenly everything will be fine and they will take credit for their plan. Let’s see how far this works.
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