MULTAN,Jan 3rd: Employees of MEPCO and other Discos organised a big rally in Multan which bagan from MEPCO head quarter and reached at Chowk Nawabn Shehr where they observed sit in for two hours to continue their struggle to save companies from privatization.They observed complete strike and taken out rally and protest after locked their offices against WAPDA privatisation . The demonstrators chanted slogans against Government. MEPCO employees have blocked Khanewal road, LMQVroad, Ghanta Ghar road, Abdali road . Demonstrators said that Government trying to privatise rather than supplying of new projects of power and to active closed power plants saying it from which thousands of employees would be unemployed and consumers also would have to face difficulties in this regard. Demonstrators further said that if WAPDA privatisation process had not stopped then across the country power would have closed.Senior officials of Union Ghulam Rasul Gujjar, Sajjad Baloch, Malik Saeed, Mehr Altaf, Ikram Alvi, Rana Zahid Javed, Ch Khushi Muhammad, Izhar Khan Mukhtar Bukhari, Saleem Gilani, Sheikh Shahid Hussain, Ghulam Dastgir Maitla and Naveed Baloch warned against privatisation of the Wapda and dissolution of MEPCO and threatened to cut power supply for indefinite period. They were Carrying banners and placards against the privatization, the protestors blocked traffic at the District Council and chanted slogans against the government.They said the government should reduce rates of electricity and take urgent steps to end loadshedding in the country.They said the electricity was mandatory for the public, agriculture, trade and industry and it was the responsibility of the government to ensure this facility.“If the government can run billions of rupees metro bus systems in Multan,Islamabad and Lahore, then why it wants to hand over the profitable Discos to the influential people,” he asked.Suggesting viable alternative to privatization, they said the government should hand over such companies to Wapda and introduce reforms.
