LAHORE, Oct 11: Wapda employees took to the street of major cities of the country on Thursday to protest violation of an agreement by the federal minister for power and water with their union.

Under the banners of the Pakistan Wapda Hydro-Electric Central Labour Union, they staged rallies in Hyderabad, Sukkur, Larkana, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Multan, Sahiwal, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Rawalpindi, Swat, Abbotabad, Peshawar, Quetta and other cities to oppose handing over the management of national power houses besides 15 electricity generation and transmission companies to individuals at the behest of IMF and World Bank.

In Lahore, the protesters gathered outside the press club. Led by union secretary-general Khurshid Ahmad and other senior members, the protesters reiterated their demand that the control of national electricity generation and distribution companies be returned to Wapda.

Ironically, the administrative and financial control of power generation and distribution companies was being given to individuals by inducting them as members of the board of directors though they had not invested a single rupee. The move would add to the problems of the companies and further escalate the woes of consumers and would not help overcome electricity shortage.

Khurshid Ahmad said on the occasion Wapda workers had built the second largest national transmission system in Asia. Hundreds of workers scarified their lives or became disabled while performing their duty every year, he said.

He said the proposed privatisation would further complicate the inter-provincial dispute on differential power tariff and irrigation water distribution. “Private managements could not efficiently supply electricity in the cities like Karachi, Rawalpindi and Multan; how will they meet the requirements of millions of people living in villages, hilly and far-off areas? The federal minister for water and power had given a written assurance to the union that there would be no privatisation of any power generation or distribution company. But the minister has backed out of it,” he said.

He said the workers would be left with no option but to hold a long march on Islamabad in case the minister did not honour his agreement. He demanded that the accepted demands of the union for upgradation of pay scales and provision of security to the staff against power thieves should be implemented.

Before dispersing peacefully, the protesters offered fateha for their colleagues who lost their lives while performing duty, victims of fire in Karachi and Lahore factories and the journalist who was killed in Khuzdar.

They also prayed for early recovery of Malala Yousafzai.