Balochistan Wide Strike By Farmers To Protest Load Shedding

Quetta – Highways in all over Balochistan were blocked by Zamindar Action committee (ZAC) to protest long hours of electricity load shedding, on Monday.

ZAC is a union of farmers and growers in Balochistan and it had given a call to block all major roads of Balochistan to record its protests against federal government for long hours of load shedding in Balochistan.

Highways in Balochistan were blocked at more than two dozen places including Kuchlak, Mastung, Noshki, Dera Murad Jamali, Sibi Kalat, Khuzdar and Muslim Bagh.

Malik Naseer Ahmad Shahwani, the interim Chairman of ZAC, blasted government of Pakistan for 23 hours of load shedding in a day. He further said that as a result of load shedding farmers have incurred losses amounting to over Rs. 147 billion.

“Despite the orders of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif Electricity supply to Balochistan has not been restored,” lamented Mr. Shahwani. He alleged that “Federal government has surplus electricity but it doesn’t want to supply it to the farmers of Balochistan.”

According to information provided by ZAC there are 28,000 Tube well in Balochistan out of which 25,000 have been regularized and only 3,000 are illegal.

Abdul Jabbar Kakar, another leader of ZAC, said that 80% people of Balochistan depend on agriculture for their livelihood and 23 hours of load shedding a day has crippled the economy of Balochistan.

As usual, spokesman of Quetta Electricity Supply Company (QESCO) was not available for a comment.

Balochistan is the biggest victim of Load shedding because even in winter season villages of Balochistan only get one hour of electricity per day.

Staff Report

Published in The Balochistan Point on February 24, 2015