LAHORE, Sept 25: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has urged the government to complete water and hydropower projects in the shortest possible time as an acute shortage of electricity has been hitting hard economic activities in the country.

“Acute electricity and gas shortage has not only crippled the trade and industry, but also caused widespread unemployment and poverty,” said LCCI President Irfan Qaiser Sheikh in a statement on Tuesday.

He said timely completion of hydropower projects was vital for mitigating water and power shortfall. The government should ensure equal power supply throughout the country as Punjab was the worst hit by electricity shortage and only last year it lost three per cent of its GDP due to power crisis.

“Power cuts for long hours have not only spoiled investment scenario in Punjab but also forced the existing industrial units to curtail their production. In spite of a consensus at the Energy Conference on April 9 and a pledge for equal loadshedding across the country, the consumers especially in Punjab continue to suffer due to unjust and prolonged outages,” he said.

The chamber president said the consumers of efficient distribution companies with the lowest line losses and the highest recovery ratio were being treated unfairly.

Mr Sheikh said: “Punjab contributes nearly two-thirds to the GDP, pays for 80 per cent of electricity bills and gets only 60 per cent of electricity units, but is being made the worst victim of injustice.”

He said the LCCI had repeatedly been warning the government of massive layoffs and industrial closures if it failed to stop outages, but the people sitting at the helm of the affairs were playing the role of a silent spectator.

The chamber president said the government would not be able to control the situation triggered by demonstrations and strikes called by angry industrial workers against their retrenchments as a result of the loadshedding.

He said: “How the government will establish its writ and from where it will collect revenue to run its day-to-day affairs when the industrial wheel is coming to a grinding halt.”

He said the government should understand that economic wellbeing was a must for democracy. Unemployment, price hike and industries’ closure always gave birth to lawlessness and anarchy. The government should understand the ground realities and reset its priorities regarding the provision of electricity to the industry.