MULTAN: Electricity will only be provided to those who pay bills while protests and demonstrations (against loadshedding) will not resolve the issue.

State Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali told a press conference on Wednesday that loadshedding would be eliminated by 2018 as thousands of magawatts (MW) would be added to the national grid in a matter of months.

He said they had rehabilitated and improved 38 power plants. Though there was a 3,700MW shortfall in the country, there was no unannounced loadshedding anywhere while in July and August, over 20,000MW would be generated.

He said that the country was facing an 18-hour a day loadshedding in 2013 which had now been reduced to three to four hours. Indirectly referring to the PPP protest drive against loadshedding, he said their predecessor had done nothing to end loadshedding. “There’s not protest by the people against loadshedding as only the workers of opposition parties are holding protests and demonstrations,” he said.

He said the power shortfall was only due to the repair and maintenance of power plants.He said that 161 schemes related to gird stations improvements and laying of transmission lines had been completed with the cost of Rs9.61 billion.

He said that Rahim Yar Khan and its adjoining areas were facing long loadshedding hours only due to huge line losses in those areas.He said that PPP Senator Aitzaz Ahsan had showed his mistrust on Supreme Court judges, so he should be tried under contempt of court charges.

He said that the children of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, including Mariam Safdar, had been given clean chit by the court in the Panama case.

He said the late father of Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan was dismissed from service for corruption charges.

Published in Dawn, May 4th, 2017