Diverting public attention: 'Seraiki province being used as a ploy'

The leadership of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) was using the issue of the creation of a Seraiki province as a ploy to divert people's attention from pressing public issues, Punjab Forum's president Baig Raj said on Sunday.
This issue, he said, and other methods were being used to punish the majority of population in Punjab, which had totally rejected them. Criticising the government, he said that power outages had intensified after the second Energy Conference, adding that the energy crisis was hitting the province's people, industry, trade and agriculture.
President Zardari's promises to the industrialists during his Lahore have also proved empty and meaningless, he said.
The president of the Punjab Forum said that the chief minister of Punjab also seemed reluctant for hosting a "useless energy conference which only helped drain resources".
Terming the energy moot a move to stop a massive protest campaign, he said that the rulers were now using the issue of the Seraiki province to divert public attention from their failures.
Pointing out that water in the Tarbela Dam reservoir had already hit dead level, he said that the shortfall of energy had surged to as much as 4,000 megawatts, adding that power generation through hydel, thermal and IPPs currently stood at just 10,219MW "which is hurting Punjab the most".
Lashing out against the government and accusing it of lacking political will to resolve the energy crisis, he said that there was an immediate need to bridge the demand-supply gap by importing energy from neighbouring countries.
Pakistan, he sai, needed $215 million to overhaul public sector's thermal power plants to generate an extra 2,000MW, while the extension of the Guddu power plant could add as much as 747MW of electricity. However, he said that the government had so far not taken any step in this direction.