Water and Power Minister Khawaja Asif on Sunday said the nation would have to show more patience for getting permanent freedom from the persisting energy crisis.
Addressing a reception hosted in his honour by the Markazi Anjuman-e-Tajran, he said the government had paid Rs 322 billion circular debt to independent power producers (IPPs) to reduce the duration of load shedding.
“We can reduce three-hour load shedding if traders stop their business activities at 7.30pm across the country,” he said.
The minister said the government was contemplating various options for generating electricity from coal, water and wind.
Asif said the government was trying to provide maximum relief to the people during Ramazan by reducing load shedding duration in the country.
“We have been facing energy crisis for the last 15 years and the government was making strenuous efforts for bringing the country out of electricity crisis,” he added.
He was confident that electricity situation would improve after the increase of water level in dams.
Federal Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif has urged the country’s traders and businessmen to unanimous formulate a schedule time of closing their shops in evening for sharing the hands of government in energy conservation, saying that the early closure of the shops on a time in all parts of the country would help to save 1,100 to 1200 megawatts of electricity. He said that the business community should also join the governmental efforts to save maximum energy by adopting the alternative resources of the power usage.
Asif said the PML-N government was fully aware of the business community’s problems and was making efforts to solve them under “dynamic leadership” of Nawaz Sharif.
Now, the PML-N would make Pakistan an Asian Tiger, by putting the country on the highway to national political and economical stability, as the economical stability was the priority of the present government through solving the energy crisis, he revealed.
He narrated that the former rulers had ruined the country’s economy by creating the energy crisis through plundering the national exchequer.
Later, talking to delegations at his residence, Asif added that getting rid of the energy crisis was not an easy task, as the crisis had grown up by the former rulers in years and now the years were required to overcome the menace of said aggregated energy crisis, which had perturbed the life of everyone and ruined the national economy, saying that it will take time to end the persisting energy crisis despite the PML-N government has started work on emergency ground to give the maximum relief to the energy crisis beaten people, in this regard.
Asif said that the PML-N government has evolved an effective anti-power load shedding strategy for giving maximum relief to the people.
He also said that about 5,000MW electricity could be generated by stopping gas supply to CNG and fertiliser sectors. Asif said that it would take about three years to overcome the power crisis completely but steps were being taken for gradual decrease in load shedding.
The minister said that to give CNG facility to a few people, millions of people were being deprived of electricity.
Khawaja Asif urges people to bear load shedding with patience
