Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has strongly criticised the federal government for victimising people of the Punjab and creating electricity and gas crisis deliberately. Talking to the local industrialists, traders and businessmen on Monday at Senate Hall University of Agriculture Faisalabad, the chief minister said that in case the traders and industrialists staged a long march to Islamabad, he would himself join this march.
The chief minister also assured the traders and industrialists that the members of parliament belonging to PML-N will join the protest of the members of Faisalabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) and Anjuman-e-Tajran on Tuesday (tomorrow) along with a large numbers of party workers.
He said that present rulers were earning huge money from rental power units. He opposed the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) launched by the PPP government with the cost of Rs 3.5 billion. He said this programme was not for common man and it should be immediately stopped and earmarked huge amount should be spent on the welfare of the people and adequate generation of electricity.
Regarding the gas outages in Punjab, the chief minister said that he would become a party in the Supreme Court where a case regarding unequal supply of gas was being heard. He said that the federal government should immediately start power generation from coal to overcome the shortage of energy in the country.
He mentioned that the opposition would also move a bill in National Assembly for deferring present electricity bill for a month. He said that Ahsan Iqbal would raise voice about this issue in the forthcoming NA session. Regarding factory inspection and social security problems, he asked the traders to constitute committees to solve this issue and assured the government would fully cooperate with the businessmen.