MINGORA: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf Chairman Imran Khan said on Thursday that his party’s Azadi March was aimed at establishing genuine democracy and removing the ‘monarchs’ currently ruling the country.

Addressing a gathering after inaugurating a 150kv micro-hydel power station at Matta in Swat, he urged people to take to streets along with their children because the only course left for them was to agitate against the PML-N government.

Mr Khan said time for talks with the government was over and now the August 14 long march on Islamabad would replace the ‘monarchy’ with a genuinely democratic system.

He accused the Punjab government of creating hurdles for the marchers, but warned that such tactics would turn out to be political suicide for the rulers.

The PTI chief said Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had been producing cheap electricity, but the people of the province had been suffering from prolonged power outages for a long time.

“We are planning to move court against the power supply system in Pakistan,” he added.

He said the provincial government would build 365 small hydel projects in Swat district and the project inaugurated on Thursday was the first of them. “The KP government wanted to provide electricity for Rs2 per unit round-the-clock to people in the province.”

Mr Khan said there was no corruption in micro-level projects in KP, but he alleged rampant corruption in Lahore’s Metro Bus project.

He said the KP government planned to plant one billion trees and take steps to curb timber smuggling in the province. “The government will continue to crack down on timber smugglers to recover wood worth billions of rupees,” he said.

In reply to a question, the PTI chairman said the decision about future of the KP assembly would be taken after the long march.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2014