LAHORE – The Lahore High Court Chief Justice on Tuesday admitted for regular hearing a petition challenging electricity loadshedding in Punjab and seeking directions to revise the loadshedding plan keeping in view the line losses.
Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) filed the petition and submitted that the energy crises for industry and trading segment of the Punjab was major problem as the energy was essential to run the wheel of industry.
The LCCI pointed out that ministry of water and power had been failed completely to take timely measures for the generation of the required energy. The chamber said that Lahore was facing worst every loadshedding from 10 to 16 hours which should not be more than 8 hours if the impact of the shortfall was fairly divided but the ministry was unable to justify such long power outage.
The chamber further pointed out that the federal government was providing subsidy amounting Rs123billion to WAPDA (Water and Power Development Authority) and PEPCO whereas separate subsidy of Rs24.5billion was for KESC (Karachi Electric Supply Company) meaning thereby that consumption in Karachi was 20 per cent of the whole country. While, other eight electricity distribution companies were not enjoying the distribution of subsidy at same ratio, the petitioner contended.
The chamber pleaded that the respondents including the federal government, NEPRA, Pepco, WAPDA and others had in 2011 increased Rs2.0429/kwh and in Feb 2012 the increment was further enhanced to Rs3.0329.
The chamber requested the LHC to set aside the increase in the prices of electricity, and revise load shedding plan keeping in view the line losses. The petitioner also sought directions to the government to immediately start the hydel projects, and maximize the production capacity of Thar Coal project so as to the cost of production level of 10,000MW.
Chief Justice Shiekh Azmat Saeed directed the all respondents to file reply within two week.