LAHORE – The PPP government is working to find a permanent solution to the energy crisis in the country as 22 small dams are in their final phase while work is also in progress on Bhasha, Neelum Jhelum and other big projects.
These views were expressed by Coordinator to the President of Pakistan, Naveed Chaudhry, in an exclusive interview to the news agency on Sunday.
He said the government is working not only to overcome the energy shortfall but real issue before it, that is to produce power at lower rates, he added. He said the previous PPP government had made Pakistan a power-surplus country in 1996 by introducing Independent Power Producers (IPPs) but it inherited the energy crisis when it came to power in 2008.
The government also empowered the provinces to set up power projects up to 50 megawatt but the Punjab government took no action and in a bid to conceal its failure and inefficiency, tried to exploit the energy crisis for publicity and defame the federal government,” he added.
“All provinces are being treated equally by the federal government and no province is being given any special favour in this regard. Punjab is receiving more electricity than other provinces according to its population,” he added.
He said the Punjab Chief Minister had diverted funds towards
Sasti Roti, Ashiana, laptops and other projects to open floodgates of corruption and did not spend a single rupee for electricity generation.
“The Punjab government also failed to implement recommendations of the energy conference, avoided two holidays a week and adopted a course of confrontation with the federal government,” he added.