THE Government came under fire from its own members in the National Assembly on Tuesday on the issue of electricity load-shedding during the scorching heat of the summer.
The issue came under discussion when the house took up a calling attention notice that had been moved by four members of the PTI from KP, inviting the attention of the Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar to the “shortage of transformers and other electrical equipment resulting in load-shedding in the KP”.
The grievance is genuine as people are made to suffer due to frequent power outages despite availability of surplus electricity.
The Minister too acknowledged this fact when he said the country could produce 30,000MW electricity but the transmission system could hardly supply 24,000MW, which was an indirect admission of the hard work done by the previous government in turning the otherwise energy deficient country into energy-surplus.
It is a wrong tendency to put blame on others as the Minister did by accusing the last two governments of PPP and PML(N) of not doing enough to resolve problems of the energy sector especially upgradation and expansion of the infrastructure.
The two governments of the past might have erred in this regard but it is also a fact that PTI has been in power for the last three years (and in case of KP for the last eight years) and its own achievements vis-à-vis infrastructure are not enviable.
It is ironic that in the past people experienced the worst type of power outages due to a large gap between demand and generation but now they are unable to get uninterrupted electricity because of system constraints.
It is time to end the blame game and implement well thought- out plans to ensure adequate supply of electricity to all types of consumers at affordable rates.
