Sir: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has claimed that load shedding has caused his province a loss of Rs 500 billion that has rendered hundreds of thousands of people jobless and made fields barren. I would like to ask him why he has not established any power policy to attract local and foreign investment and set up plants when the 18th Amendment allows provinces to generate electricity on their own. Two years ago, he signed an agreement with a Chinese company to build a 140 MW hydropower plant at Taunsa Barrage. However, people of Pakistan like me have yet to see progress on the project. There were also a number of hydropower projects allotted to private companies to build power plants on canals and rivers in Punjab. Why have these projects not been built during the last four years? It seems that the PML-N government in Punjab has been spending billions of rupees on Sasti Roti, Ashiana Housing and laptop distribution schemes to win political popularity but it is ignoring the actual problems being faced by the people. Perhaps the PML-N has deliberately not taken any steps to solve the energy shortage problem to damage the credibility of the PPP-led coalition government at the Centre. The federal government, on the other hand, is using a political gimmick to cover its own inability of finding a potent solution for the energy shortage problem in the country by assigning provinces the ability to generate their own power.
When will Mian Shahbaz Sharif realise that no one buys his rhetoric?
S T HUSSAIN
Lahore
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