MUZAFFARGARH: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira on Monday urged PML-N leaders to avoid political point scoring on the issue of loadshedding and advised them to help strengthen the federation.

While addressing a press conference along with federal minister for water and power Chaudhry Ahmad Mukhtar at the Muzaffargarh Thermal Power Station, he said that last Friday a cyclone-type windstorm damaged around 19 steel structure transmission towers of Wapda in Muzaffargarh that excluded 1800 Mega Watt of power from the national grid, which disrupted the power supply.

However, the Punjab CM tried to score political points on this unprecedented natural disaster that had extremely damaged four main transmission lines including one 500 KV line and three 220 KV lines.

Kaira praised Wapda engineers who rushed to the desert-like site and managed to restore supply of 1100 Mega Watt of electricity supply. Another 350 MW of power supply would be restored by today evening and the rest of the 350 MW by Tuesday evening, he added.

Referring to the statement of Mian Shahbaz Sharif, he said that all the provinces are part of Pakistan and the government believes in equitable distribution of electricity on the basis of needs in accordance with the population and industry.

He said that Punjab was utilizing over 60 per cent of the electricity and majority portion of the national gas production.

Moreover, Kaira accused the PML-N leaders of leading the protest processions of baton-wielding men.

Kaira appealed the people to remain calm and avoid violence adding that the government was putting all its energies and resources to bridge the electricity shortfall problem.

He said that people own this country and by resorting to violent protests they would be hurting their own infrastructure.

He said that people should cooperate with Wapda officials as due to their hard work restoration of 1100 megawatts of power within hours was ensured despite unprecedented damage to transmission line.