LAHORE: Thousands of power workers observed a protest day and held demonstrations all over the country under the aegis of the All Pakistan Wapda Hydro Electric Workers Union.

They held rallies in support of their demands in Lahore, Peshawar, Islamabad, Faisalabad, Gujranwala, Multan, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Quetta and other major cities.

In Lahore, hundreds of workers, carrying national flags and banners, staged a rally in front of the Lahore Press Club, demanding the government take measures to check price hike of essential commodities, aggravating unemployment, abject poverty and widening irrational gap between the rich and the poor.

Addressing the rally, union leader Khurshid Ahmad urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to ease economic and social sufferings of the downtrodden and working classes in the wake of price hike and unemployment and stop privatisation of national public utilities and profitable electricity companies at the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.

Mr Ahmad said a cut in the higher rates of generation of independent private thermal power could reduce the exorbitant rate of electricity tariff and help provide cheaper electricity to the nation.

Published in Dawn, December 3rd, 2021