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Thursday March 28, 2024

ANP stages protest against gas crisis, loadshedding

By Khalid Kheshgi
April 26, 2022

PESHAWAR: The Awami National Party (ANP) on Monday staged a protest rally in front of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly building against the low pressure of gas and its non-supply to domestic consumers at Iftar and Sehar times in Peshawar and other parts of the province.

Led by provincial senior vice president of the ANP Khushdil Khan Advocate and provincial spokesperson of the party MPA Samar Haroon Bilour, dozens of the ANP workers assembled in front of the provincial assembly building with placards in their hands against gas loadshedding and low pressure.

Speaking on the occasion, MPA Khushdil Khan, also a former deputy speaker of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly, said under Article 159 of the Constitution, the people of a province or district have the right over the gas and other natural resources where these are generated.

He added that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa generate gas and electricity but unfortunately the people were deprived of its full consumption of gas and electricity.The ANP leader said that the Peshawar High Court had also directed the relevant departments to provide an uninterrupted supply of gas to the domestic and commercial consumers of the natural gas.

He said the people of Peshawar district had been facing the worst gas shortage for the last few weeks.Awami National Party provincial spokesperson MPA Samar Haroon Bilour said the gas consumers during the holy month of Ramzan, particularly at Sehar time could not get full pressure of gas and were compelled to consume woods and LPG cylinder gas for cooking.

She said that due to the high prices of LPG, the poor people could not afford to fill cylinders on daily basis, saying that the ANP would raise this issue not only on the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly floor but also at National Assembly and Senate in the Centre.Samar Bilour warned that the party would extend its protest to the entire province if the government does not take serious steps to resolve this issue of low pressure and non-supply of gas to the domestic consumers.

Meanwhile, the provincial general secretary of the Awami National Party and parliamentary party leader in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Sardar Hussain Babak in a press statement demanded that National Accountability Bureau (NAB) must break its silence over the alleged corruption in mega projects, including the Bus Rapid Transit, Billion Tree Tsunami and Bank of Khyber scam during the previous PTI-led government in the province.He said that the NAB must initiate an investigation into the mega projects where he claimed that financial irregularities and misuse of power had caused a huge loss to the exchequer.