Daily Times

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Sardar Ali Amin Gandapur led a crowd to a grid station in Dera Ismail Khan where he personally restored electricty, announcing an end to any loadshedding that exceeded 12 hours in the province.

The chief minister was ccompanied by Dera DPO Nasir Mahmood and DSP Adnan, as he visted DI Khan to resolve the ongoing issue of prolonged load shedding, according to media reports.

The visit came amid a dispute between the federal and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments over electricity load shedding, The Press Secretary for the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa later confirmed that CM Gandapur has fixed the schedule for load shedding, stating that load shedding will not exceed 12 hours in any area from now on.

The PTI leader called on all parliamentarians in the province to visit their respective grid stations to implement the 12-hour load shedding schedule.

The federal government citing ‘electricty theft’ in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has committed to providing additional supply only in case of theft going down.

Meanwhile PTI MPA Fazal Elahi Rehman also visited the Rahman Baba Grid Station twice and restored electricity to 10 feeders forcibly.

According to PESCO officials, after bringing the feeders to life, Fazal Elahi left, and electricity was cut off again in the morning, but he returned and restored electricity to four more feeders.

According to PESCO officials, in the high-load areas of Fazal Elahi’s constituency, load shedding is underway for 16 hours, but where there is no load shedding, load shedding is not being done.

According to PESCO officials, Fazal Elahi’s work to reduce load shedding on feeders is ongoing, and legal action is being taken against MPA Fazal Elahi for forcing the feeder to operate.

The Pesco had reportedly lodged an application with local police, who then registered an FIR over the storming of the gridstation but did not included the name of MPA Fazal Elahi.

Separately, the chief minister said, “I am telling Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif the last time to give Khyber Pakhtunkhwa its due money.”

Addressing a press conference, the chief minister said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has sought the province’s support over the talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for loan package. “Firstly, I want the money of the province to be paid to us, if not paid, we will inform the IMF that they are getting money in our name but don’t pay it to us,” KP CM said.

He said, “It is my warning to the prime minister that you are forcing us to push your government out of power”. “I know, how to expel you out of power. You could not bear it. No one could prevent us from taking our due rights,” he declared.

He said it is responsibility of the federal government to end the power load shedding. “We will shut down the national grid if an uninterrupted power supply was not assured to us,” he warned.

“The assembly members should go to grid stations personally and restore the power supply in the areas where a load shedding of 12 hours being implemented,” he added.