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| April 6, 2002 | Saturday | Muharram 22, 1423 |
Power outages adding to people’s woes
KOHAT, April 5: Frequent interruptions in power supply to city and rural areas for the last six months have not only made the life of Wapda consumers miserable, but is also affecting water supply to residential areas and agriculture lands through the government-owned tubewells.
Area residents complain that whenever somebody contacts Wapda centre to ask about the duration of power breakdown in a particular area or the exact time of restoration of electricity supply, nobody bothers to provide the required information.
They say due to frequent power interruptions work schedule of all people, including office-goers and students, has been affected.
Areas like Lachi, Shakardarra, Ustarzai and villages around the Tanda Dam remain cut off from the main grid for 20 days in a month, leaving the consumers in a lurch and without any remedy in sight in the near future.
Similarly, in urban areas the electricity supply virtually remains cut off for 10 days in a month making day-time terrible for the people in the summer which has arrived earlier this year.
Water supply to various towns and areas has also been badly hit because the government-owned water tanks usually get empty by noon and when the power supply is restored in the afternoon it takes hours to fill the reservoirs which ultimately forces the people to wait for water till next day.
Working in offices is mostly is done on computers, which is seriously affected.
The Pesco officials whenever asked to remove the fault say that 40 per cent of the lines and other equipment like transformers had been installed 40 years ago and had spent their life. They need immediate replacement which is not possible for Wapda in view of funds shortage.
An official disclosed that the consumers should thank the Wapda personnel who are successfully managing problems in power supply to the old parts of the city in the absence of emergency vehicles and shortage of required stuff needed to repair faults.
Talking to Dawn, President of Kohat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Manzoor Ahmed Paracha demanded of the Wapda high officials to immediately visit the area and listen to the growing complaints of the people and issue orders to rectify the situation.
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