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Islamabad, July 23, 2012 (PPI-OT): Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) highly criticized the Government as it has failed to honour the promise of ensuring an uninterrupted power supply during Sehr and Iftar times.
In a statement, President ICCI, Mr.Yassar Sakhi Butt said that prolonged power outages should not be carried out during Ramadan and Government should at least provide some respite during the holy month of fasting.
He said that more than 12 hours power loadshedding in cities while 14-18 hours of power suspension was done in rural areas, causing immense problems for the masses. ICCI President urged the Government to resolve the IPPs issues to ensure uninterrupted power supply to the public during the holy month of Ramadan as load shedding was observed after every alternate hour in the day.
Yassar Sakhi Butt said that there was also continuous power tripping during Taraweeh times and people, who came to offer Taraweeh in mosques, has been facing immense problems due to humid weather.
Therefore, Government should ensure uninterrupted power supply during Sehr, Iftar and Taraweeh times because these times are very important for Muslims and outages at these hours cause great inconvenience, he maintained.
He was showing deep concern over increase in electricity shortfall which has again reached to 5500MV due to shortage in the provision of furnace oil to power stations as well as the closure of the Chashma-I and Chashma-II plants. He urged the Government to minimize the electricity shortfall by bringing non-operational power plants into the system and utilize them optimally according to their capacity.
President ICCI stressed that its time that Government should have planed a strategy on war-footing basis to check the power theft and corruption in the system which cause loss of billion of rupees yearly and as a result seriously affecting domestic customer as well as industry thus causing loss of billion of rupees to the national exchequer.
He said that the operational directors of all distribution companies should have been directed to chalk out efficient plans in order to minimize power outages during Ramadan as continuous electricity loadshedding has aggravated the problem of the people.
For more information, contact:
Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry
Chamber House, Aiwan-e-Sanat-o-Tijarat Road,
Mauve Area, G-8/1,
Islamabad, Pakistan
Tel: +9251 225 0526 and 225 3145
Fax: +9251 225 2950
Email: icci@brain.net.pk
Website: www.icci.com.pk