LAHORE: Judicial Activism Panel Chairman Muhammad Azhar Siddique has filed an application before Lahore High Court, seeking direction to carry out 22-hour electricity load shedding in the Presidency, the Prime Minister’s House and houses of other VIPs to bring them at par with common citizens.
Siddique moved the application into a main petition pending against load shedding. The applicant stated that common citizens were bearing burnt of long outages whereas the official residences of important personalities had been exempted from load shedding. He stated that load shedding would not be eliminated unless the president, prime minister and other VIPs bear the wrath of load shedding like common people.
In his main petition, he requested that the electricity authorities should be directed to submit load shedding schedule for the Presidency, the Prime Minister’s House, chief ministers’ houses and other high officials before the court. He also requested to direct NEPRA, WAPDA, PEPCO and LESCO to submit details about the electricity production through thermal, coal, gas, furnace oil, or solar sources. He further sought production of financial statements showing profit and loss details as well as profit and loss account, debit and credit entries and details of other expenses for disclosure to the public-at-large in view of Article 19-A of the constitution.
He also stated that the money being collected under the head of fuel adjustment and other surcharges was being paid to rental power projects, therefore, these surcharges could not be collected from the citizens. He stated that people of Pakistan were facing gas and as well as electricity crises but were forced to pay utility bills as demanded by gas authorities and WAPDA, including surcharges of all kind.-Dailytimes
