There used to be a time when in this great nation of ours, one would get both Friday and Saturday off as a weekend. Friday for the religious sake, as Friday prayers are involved and all, and sunday as an official break. Then came the 20th century and Nawaz Sharif deemed it uneccessary to have a two day wekeend, as it was leading to inefficiency and we would soon be coming into our own as tigers or cheetahs of south east asia, whatever.
Now obviously being as far sighted as normally our local government policies are, we made the collective error of underestimating the effects and further load this elongating of the working week would make on our infrastructure. Yes my friends i am speaking of the rickety, jumble of wires and PMTS the K.E.S.C seems to keep referring to as the “power distribution infrastructure”
The result being that even before the summer season has started. The collective power brokers of pakistan including the K.E.S.C(Karachi electric supply corporation) have declared that there is atleast a 700 mw shortage in karachi and then some more in Punjab. K.E.S.C is currently demanding that WAPDA which is presumably a federal authority provide them with this 700Mw’s or else the summer will be one in which the local populace will sizzle like seekh kebabs under the 40C sunlight, without any power for 12 hrs every other day.
Now a few years ago the government had a much smaller power shortage and had resorted to enacting the shop act, thus making it mandatory for all shops and commercial activity to close at 7 pm. They tried the same thing last year, and it worked for about umm 4 days. Problem is, the people do not have any time to shop as the weekend is only 24 hrs long. Thus they come out with their families at night to shop and therefore the markets cannot close early or they lose about 50% of their sales.
Solution? it seems to be an easy one to me at least. The government needs to take us weary Pakistanis back to the two day weekend. Thus all commercial activity will remain closed on the extra day off and result in the saving of mucho power. It will also lead to a lessening of road rage as well as other frustration related illnesses. Depression too has gone up at a rate higher than crude oil in Pakistan according to statistics. Again the cause is the same. We are not getting enough time off as a nation. No! leaders being assassinated and widespread looting resulting in barren streets for days do not count!!
Plus even if we look at our Saturdays realistically, banks and all major multinational and corporate setups have a half day. General business activity also slows down also because no one wants to do any work on a Saturday afternoon. Thus what is the point of the commercial markets remaining open and consuming power unnecessarily? We must understand that the rest of the world does have a point when they practice the two day weekend.
So lets save some power and relax at the same time, let us have our weekends back please, so we get to spend proper time with our friends and families and unwind. Trust me it will help. Friday & Saturday or Saturday & Sunday do not matter, give us a break!!