Pakistan Industrial & Traders Association Front (PIAF) has urged the in-waiting-Prime Minister of Pakistan Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif to start work on Kalabagh Dam (KBD) to get rid of the menace of load shedding that has pushed the industrial sector on the verge of collapse.
In a felicitation message to the newly elected Members of National Assembly, Acting Chairman PIAF Khamis Saeed Butt said that Muhammad Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif have to take revolutionary measures to put the economy back on rail. He said that it would be proved that the construction of KBD is of utmost importance to get rid of electricity shortage, closure of industry and unemployment.
He said that KBD could generate cheap electricity but federal government shelved the project with one stroke of the pen and utilising all energies to generate costly electricity through furnace oil. Khamis Saeed Butt said that manufacturing growth is stagnant while burden of internal and external debts getting heavier with every passing day.
He said that industry cannot grow by using much costly electricity. Pakistani products are already losing their share in the international market and situation would nose dive if KBD is not constructed on war footing. He said that former Chairman Wapda Shamasul Mulk and various foreign experts have termed the KBD necessary for Pakistan but previous government shelved the important project of KBD with a one stroke of pen. Had a little attention been given towards the construction of Kalabagh Dam in past, today country would have ample electricity and prosperity in all corners, he added.
