THE politics of protests must end now. Ransacking and destruction of public and private properties must stop. Parties protest against each other but the real losers are the poor people.

They face losses, be it direct to their properties or the loss of public properties, offices, buildings, installations, etc.

There is a rare show of protests these days as the Punjab government is leading this movement against the federal government. The failure of the federal government in solving the power crisis has damaged the economy of Punjab more than any other province. Does it justify the act of Punjab government to wage a war against the federal government and indirectly cause damage to the national exchequer? For the last few weeks these protests against the federal government have transformed into deadly violence and have resulted in deaths in Kamalia, Khanewal, etc.

The question is: has the Punjab government set up any power generation system in the province after the 18th Amendment in the Constitution which has authorised it to generate electricity? The answer is no. Most of the resources in the province have been spent on either building of flyovers in Lahore or schemes like ‘sasti roti’, laptops to students, etc.

Without electricity, no scheme, no matter how good and viable it is, can meet success because electricity is the backbone of the economy.

The Punjab chief minister instead of blaming the federal government for power crisis should work on projects of power generation.

Why cannot the chief minister install solar energy systems at government offices throughout the province? It will save a lot of energy.

We have ample resources for the generation of electricity through alternate means in the province like solar, wind, bio, etc.

I do not believe that protests are a good idea to end this crisis.

Now people have started to believe that the Punjab government also has fallen in the footsteps of the federal government of raising a hue and cry and doing nothing.

RAZA KHARAL
Lahore