ISLAMABAD – Chairman Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Imran Khan Wednesday deplored the failure of federal and provincial governments in power generation, which was resulting into massive layoffs, retrenchments, decreasing income and shutting down of private businesses across the country, leaving thousands of jobless people to commit suicide and forcing others to commit crimes.
In a statement issued here from the party’s media center, Imran Khan said that the PTI when came to power would get the country on development track by resolving the energy crisis through its elaborated energy policy. Holding the PPP and PML-N governments responsible for the massive economic crunch, Imran Khan said this crisis had held the government hostage to toeing the policies of foreign powers and allowing the foreign countries to dictate their terms on Pakistan.
Imran Khan said that the year 2013 was also a year of severe accountability and the people of Pakistan would hold the federal and Punjab governments accountable for their sin of ignoring their miseries and making mockery of the energy crisis.
“The industrial sector of Punjab has suffered the most due to worst loadshedding and suspension of gas supply which is getting severer by each passing day. Despite the fact that Punjab has a major role in total agriculture and industrial production of the country, the lack of will of the federal government and Punjab governments to generate energy has hit hard the two sectors of the province,” he added.
He said that recent gas shortage in the country in general and in Punjab in specific is hitting the labour classes hard. He demanded that all provinces should be treated equally in supply of these important utilities. “The government would have to reset its priorities regarding provision of gas, otherwise situation would go out of hands.”
He said that around 40 per cent of the industrial units in Punjab are run on gas and gas suspension means no production by almost half of the industry and a loss of millions of rupees to the exchequer.
“The government is committing an economic massacre of the industrial workers by turning the province into a trading place instead of a manufacturing hub. The federal government should do away with lopsided gas supplies. Otherwise, the people would have to take to streets and the rulers would have to face wrath of the jobless and unemployed,” he concluded.