Pakistan : Power workers hold nation-wide rallies
LAHORE, Sep 2: Electricity workers took out rallies and held meetings in Lahore, Quetta, Hyderabad, Larkana, Sukkur, Multan, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and other major cities of the country on Sep 1
to press the government to accept their demands.
In Lahore, scores of workers gathered outside Bakhtiar Labour Hall on Nisbet Road under the banners of All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union. After marching various roads, workers reached Shimla Hill where they staged a demonstration.
Carrying national flags and holding banners, the workers raised slogans urging the Wapda management to ensure provision of safe working conditions to the field staff. There had been a rise in fatal accidents involving the line staff during the past one month or so, they said.
Later, the participants adopted a resolution urging the government to expedite work on new hydel power projects and completion of upgrading of existing ones on a priority basis.
It also called for provision of fuel to existing thermal power plants after banning large-scale import of luxury goods. All commercial centres should be closed at 8pm and the administrative control of distribution companies be returned to Wapda, it added.
Union’s secretary-general Khurshid Ahmad said the provision of cheap electricity to general and industrial consumers was the need of the hour, adding prolonged power outages had resulted in closure of several industrial units and rendered hundreds of thousands of workers jobless.
Published by Daily Dawn on Sep 2, 2016
