Sir: The Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) has planned up to 12 hours load shedding in the rural areas and eight hours in urban areas during the summer mainly due to circular debt and water shortage. On March 28, the Ministry of Water and Power officially informed the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Water and Power that power shortfall would touch 3,500 MW in summer. Almost in all countries, rural areas are given more importance in order to bring them at par with urban areas but in Pakistan, efforts are always made to push rural areas further towards backwardness by observing discrimination as is evident from the load shedding programme of PEPCO. I request the federal government to take serious notice of such discrimination and load shedding period in rural as well as urban areas must be kept the same in order to avoid discrimination. MOHAMMAD KHAN SIAL Karachi