Power crisis: Pak plans to shut markets by 8 pm, put curbs on weddings

December 20, 2022 18:41

Markets and restaurants across Pakistan will have to pull down their shutters by 8 pm while wedding halls will be limited till 10 pm, as the cash-strapped country on Tuesday unveiled a desperate plan to conserve energy.

Pakistan is in the midst of an acute energy crisis, high inflation and depleting remittances.

The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war and the catastrophic floods in June have only compounded the country's energy woes.

The national energy-conservation programme was launched by Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, and it comes a day after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed authorities to reduce circular debt in the energy sector.

Asif said the federal government will approach provinces for the implementation of this nationwide scheme.

Briefing the media after the cabinet meeting, the minister said a final decision will be taken by Thursday.

"In the next few days, we will be approaching all the provinces with this national project and then on Thursday the final approval of the conservation policy will be given, Asif said.

Under this scheme, he said the timing of wedding halls would be limited to 10pm, while restaurants, hotels and markets would close down by 8pm.

He, however, said that there may be some room for the closing time for restaurants to be extended by an hour.

Asif said that if 20 per cent of the government workforce worked from home on a rotation basis, Rs 56 billion could be saved and coupled with a few steps, the country would be able to save Rs 62 billion.

He also said that energy-efficient fans and bulbs would soon be introduced to help save Rs 38 billion and electric bikes would replace traditional motorcycles to reduce the consumption of petrol.

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