The blazing sun and long hours of electricity load shedding have increased the misery of people manifold during the holy month of Ramzan as power outages were seen on the second consecutive day during Sehr and Iftar timings in many parts of the city.
The scorching heat has forced the citizens to spend most of their time at home, but even that proved challenging because of power outages.
On the first day of Ramzan, there was electricity breakdown in Shahdara, Ravi Road, Manga Mandi and some parts of Iqbal Town during Sehr and Iftar. On the second day, the situation improved in the urban areas of Lahore, the outskirts still had to experience multiple breakdowns.
Liaqat Ali, a shopkeeper from Shahdara told Pakistan Today that the government has made it difficult for the people to keep fasting in this holy month as there is eight to ten hours of load shedding in his area.
“The previous government of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was routed in the elections because it did not resolve the energy crisis and this government will also be defeated because of this very crisis,” he said, and added, “The government came into power with a promise to end the electricity load shedding, but no significant improvement has been seen on this front.”
However, Minister for Water and Power Khawaja Asif has claimed in his tweets that electricity generation has crossed 17,000 Megawatts (MW) for the first time in the history of the country due to untiring efforts of his Ministry. However, the electricity shortfall still oscillates between 900 MW and 4500 MW depending on the demand in the country.
It should be noted that even a 900 MW shortfall means load shedding for millions of households.
Asif said that the areas where electricity failure was seen during Sehr and Iftar timings was due to technical faults.
Moreover, the industrial area of Bund Road has also witnessed electricity failure in recent days due to excessive demand.
Sheikh Ahsan, who runs a small printing press at Bund Road, told Pakistan Today that his area was exempted from electricity load shedding before Ramzan, but the situation has changed now and his business has suffered badly.
There was also an electricity breakdown of six to eight hours in the posh area of Shadman on the second day of Ramzan.
On Wednesday, three SDOs of the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) were terminated because of corruption charges and financial malpractices.
