PESHAWAR, June 15: The Awami National Party has asked the government to disband the Water and Power Development Authority and hand over its electricity generation and distribution operation to the provinces to ease the power crisis and end the menace of loadshedding.

In a statement on Friday, the party’s provincial president Afrasiab Khattak said that before the promulgation of ‘One Unit’, the provinces controlled the production and supply of electricity and organised their hydel power generation capacity.

Unfortunately, he said, the control of Wapda was shifted to Lahore after the move. Although the One Unit was abolished in 1970, the Wapda House remained in Lahore, and Punjab continued to control Wapda.

He regretted that the chief minister of the NWFP, the province which generates thousands of megawatts of electricity, was begging the centre for power to cope with the shortage.

The problem, he said, had aggravated due to the unwillingness of Wapda to give hydel power royalty to the NWFP as required by law. Mr Khattak urged the people to wage a united struggle to get the royalty from the centre.

He asked that if the Punjab could control the supply of wheat produced there, why can’t the NWFP control its natural resources?