LAHORE: The PML-N government’s plan to enforce closure of businesses by 8pm has received a mixed response from political parties.

PTI Punjab President Ejaz Chaudhry says the people are paying the price of government’s “incapable” ministers and instead of resolving the electricity crisis, the Sharif brothers are dragging Pakistan towards the stone age. He says the economy is on downward spiral as loadshedding has destroyed every sector.

Party General-Secretary Yasmin Rashid says the minister of water and power, instead of resolving the electricity crisis, is busy playing politics in the National Assembly and the government is trying to fool the public with “dummy” coal power projects.

Information secretary Andaleeb Abbas says she has never seen such a pathetic and bad governance. She says the Sharifs and their cronies are enjoying lives in the loadshedding-free areas but asking others not to shop after 8pm. This is not a solution to the issue.

Minhajul Quran Supreme Council leader Dr Hasan Mohyuddin regrets that the government has no plan to overcome power shortage other than earlier closure of the markets. Talking to a group of small industrialists, Ulema and political activists from Gujrat here, he said the masses were right to demand an audit of the MoUs signed by the government for power generation during the last 21 months as the “imaginary” projects could not generate even a single megawatt so far.

He said at a time when people were losing jobs due to closure of businesses for want of electricity and gas, suicides had become a routine. Earlier closure of shops would further hurt the poor strata of society, he added.

He demanded that the government stop power theft, undue line losses and corruption in the power utility instead of punishing the business community for these failures of the government.

Tehrik-i-Istiqlal President Rehmat Khan Wardag has lauded the shops’ closure plan believing it may save precious power for students and bring the loadshedding duration down to six hours. He argues that in the western world the businesses are closed by 6pm while here the government has given two extra hours.

Urging the traders to accept the plan, he says it will help re-introduce healthy lifestyle and spare time for the traders for socialising. He has also called upon the government to check line losses and expose and arrest the big fish stealing valuable electricity with the connivance of the power utility staff.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2015

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