The ongoing outage of electricity has created serious problems for the common man and industrial units that are running for below the required level.

Government has not taken serious measures to overcome the growing electricity shortfall, resulting in a slow down of economic activity throughout Pakistan, Shahis Zaman Shinwari, Acting President Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has stated this in a statement.

ICCI Acting President was concerned over a deteriorating electricity situation and strongly emphasized upon the Government to give immediate attention to run the existing units by removing faults and providing gas to power producing units.

Shahid Zaman Shinwari was of the view that in case of further shortage of electricity which at present has almost reached to 7000 MW, would create serious problems for the general masses as well as for the industrial units.

ICCI Acting President indicated that sudden electricity supply cuts have negatively impact the production process as well and export of value added industries which was considered to be a major foreign exchange earner of Pakistan has also recorded a steep fall due to electricity load shedding. He urged the Government to take all possible steps for consistent supply of electricity to industries.

He called upon the Government to device a proper mechanism instead of adopting short-cut solutions on day to day basis to meet the electricity demands. ICCI Acting President also urged the Government to accelerate its efforts for setting up new water reservoirs and dams on emergent basis to cope with the electricity crisis.

Shahid Zaman Shinwari was of the view that high power tariff, a burden on businesses and consumers, could be reduced by utilizing the available water resources more efficiently as the water is the most viable and cheapest way to produce electricity.

He also demanded that fuel adjustment formula should be revamped as it is very seriously impacting the trade and industry in a negative way as well as general masses in general. He said that Pakistani exports are loosing buyers in the international market because of high cost of doing business and the decision to increase power tariff under monthly fuel adjustment system would make the Pakistani goods more uncompetitive.