PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has announced holding a protest against Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) for carrying out hours-long unscheduled load shedding in the province.
All the elected members belonging to Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) would hold a walk upto the Wapda House here on July 16 to lodge a formal protest over the cruel power outages in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the province producing electricity double than its consumption, said the chief minister while addressing a press conference at CM Secretariat Peshawar.
He also asked the public to join the protest and register their sentiments and anger against Wapda. He said the federal government and Wapda did not pay attention to the hue and cry of people of the province due to power cut in the sizzling weather that too in the Holy month of ramazan.
Consumers were cursing the provincial government for their sufferings especially for water shortage because of non-availability of power supply and the federal government was exploiting the situation for political point scoring, he alleged.
Pervez Khattak while criticizing the federal government said that there was no justification of loadshedding in a province generating cheapest electricity double than its consumption. ‘We had offered taking over the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) along with generation, distribution and transmission, but the federal government is reluctant and wants us just to collect bills.
We are not even given our share of 16 percent in the total power generation and the province is facing severe loadshedding, he complained. He said the federal government was trying to defame the PTI through creating hurdles for its government that’s why the PTI had no option but to launch a protest against the Wapda and federal government.
He asked the federal government to release Rs 100 billion outstanding against Wapda besides the Rs 57 billion amount of mark up. He complained that the federal government had capped the net hydel profit on six billion despite the fact the power tariff is being hiked constantly. He said the province could generate more cheap electricity from the extra natural gas for which he had already talked to the prime minister.
Chief Minister also demanded repatriation of senior government officers and FC platoons to the KP saying the province was short of senior officers of grade 19 and above and junior officers were appointed on senior level posts in police and district management etc. He said the Frontier Constabulary (FC) should be repatriated to the province without any further delay.
The FC was recruited for the purpose of guiding borders between the settle and tribal areas not for posting as watchmen and security guards in the federal capital, he added. He said FC personnel were now direly needed to cope with the security situation on the arrival of IDPs from North Waziristan.
Counting the achievements of his government the chief minister said legislation was made for bringing reforms in the system like Right to Information Act, Right to Services Act, Local government Act, framing of energy policy, mineral policy and environment policy etc.
Reforms in health and education like uniform syllabus, filling vacant posts of teachers and doctors, provision of furniture and equipment, bifurcation of teaching and management cadres and ensuring attendance at schools and hospitals.
About Peshawar city beautification and cleanliness, the chief minister said Rs 29 billion have been allocated and tenders worth seven billion rupees for development projects have been already floated.
The contact of sanitation and cleanliness has been given to a private company that will start working from September. All the 13 parks in the capital city were being renovated and restored to provide entertainment facility to the dwellers and different squares would be redesigned to restore the past glory of the city, he informed.
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