ISLAMABAD, July 23: Business community of the federal capital lashed out at the government for its failure to honour its commitment of ensuring uninterrupted power supply during Sehr, Iftar and Taraweeh in Ramazan.

The monthly meeting at the Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) held here Monday witnessed serious criticism of government over the power policy.

Speaking on the occasion, President ICCI, Yassar Sakhi Butt said that prolonged power outages should not be carried out during Ramazan and government should at least provide some respite to the masses during the holy month as per its promise.

He further said that more than 12-hour long power outages in the city areas while 14 to 18 hours of power suspension in the rural areas was causing immense problem for the masses.

The ICCI president urged the government to resolve the independent power producers (IPPs) issue and ensure uninterrupted power supply to the public who were forced to bear the menace on alternate hours throughout the day.

The ICCI members noted that government should at least ensure uninterrupted power supply during Sehr, Iftar and Taraveeh timings due to their religious importance for the Muslims.

The members expressed concern that electricity shortfall had again reached 5,500 megawatt (MW) level due to shortage in the provision of furnace oil to the power companies as well as the closure of Chashma-I and Chashma-II power plants.

“Government should minimise the electricity shortfall by bringing non-operational power plants into the system and utilising them optimally according to their capacity,” president ICCI suggested, adding that the government should have planed a strategy on war footings to check the power theft and corruption in the system which caused loss of billions of rupees yearly and seriously affected domestic customers as well as the industry.