Negotiations Between PEPCO And Farmers Fizzle Out

The Baloch Hal News

QUETTA: As negotiations between enraged framers and managing director of Pakistan Electric Power Company (Private) Limited (PEPCO) collapsed on Saturday, the deadlock over the reopening of the supply route for NATO forces stationed in Afghanistan took a dramtic turn after the farmers announced to further prolong their blockade of the national highway for an indefinite period.

Speaking to the media in an impromptu press conference soon after the failure of negotiations with the PEPCO chairman Basharat Cheema, the chairman of Balochistan Farmers’ Action Committee, Taj Agha, said the supplies to NATO forces would be stopped in protest until the government agreed to provide at least 12-hour electricity to the farmers.

The chairman of the farmers’ action committee complained that nothing was done to comply with their demands in spite of repeated assurances by Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, Governor Balochistan Nawab Zulfiqar Ali Magsi and Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani to address farmers’ grievances on priority basis.

” The duration of load-shedding has been increased from 12 to 20 hours which has dragged all the farmers to the brink of committing suicide as our crops have been absolutely devastated due to the heavy breakdown of power supply,” he said.

He informed that many farmers had already given up farming in Khuzdar, Kalat, Mastung, Chama, Pishin and Yaro owing to increased power breakdown and lack of official intervention to surmount their problems.

“If no attention is paid to our plight, we will be compelled to commit suicide,”  warned the farmers’ leader.

He lamented that the farmers of Balochistan wanted to play their role in the national economy but the government was adding to their woes rather than facilitating them to produce better crops.