A nonsensical scheme

THE government's strategy to fight load shedding seems to have veered off track, as a strange idea has been floated in an attempt to tackle the problem, though action against officials seemingly because of unscheduled outages sounds understandable. Under the new tariff, the consumers would be paying 50 percent extra for using electricity after sunset. The authorities are of the view that this measure would considerably bring down the use of electricity at peak hours, but little do they appreciate that it would further aggravate the problem. The hardest hit would be the poor and middle classes who only use electricity after sunset. The student community would have to throw up more money for studying at night, the ideal time for that pursuit. Besides, most academies and some regular educational institutions have teaching course after sunset. The new scheme would turn out to be a punishment for this class and disincentive for education in a country where literacy rate is the lowest in the region.