Shehbaz orders immediate measures to reduce rampant power outages

LAHORE: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif while taking notice of rampant power outages in the country, has ordered to take emergency measures to significantly reduce load-shedding by the next month of May.

The prime minister said that he will not sit back till people get rid of this problem.

He directed to make every possible effort to provide relief to the people from the pain caused by the negligence of the previous government.

He directed for interim measures till sufficient amount of oil and gas is arranged.

He said the government of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had provided exrtra electricity in the country, but the previous government led by Imran Khan failed to add a single unit to it.

The previous government neither procured fuel well in time nor ensured maintenance of the power plants, Shehbaz Sharif said.

“It is an irony that the previous government closed the most efficient and affordable power plants installed by the PML-N government and used expensive and inefficient plants,” prime minister said.

The nation is paying 100 billion rupees every month for this excess of the previous government. Due to negligence of the previous rulers, one LNG ship that had six billion rupees price earlier is now costing the nation at the rate of 20 billion rupees.

This negligence will cost the nation more than 500 billion this year. He alleged that previous rulers hatched a conspiracy to bankrupt Pakistan’s economy by destroying its energy sector.

It is to be mentioned here that the electricity shortfall in the country has gone upto 5,500 megawatts (MW) resulting in power outages of upto six hours in urban centres and eight hours in rural areas.