PESHAWAR, April 19: Power supply to a large area of Mohmand Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) was disrupted after miscreants blew up a Wapda tower near Shabqader on Friday night.
The miscreants used explosives to destroy tower number 19 on the 66kv Shabqader-Ghalanai transmission line.
The collapse of the tower suspended power supply from Shabqader to Ghalanai, plunging several areas in the de facto tribal areas into darkness.
This is the fourth such incident during the last few months in which Wapda’s towers on the Ghalanai-Shabqader transmission line were blown up in Shabqader — a tribal area falling under the jurisdiction of the NWFP government.
Speaking at a press conference at his office here on Saturday, Pesco chief executive Brig Tahir Saeed Malik claimed that despite repeated requests to the provincial government for ensuring protection to Wapda’s installations in the tribal areas no step was taken, leaving the power transmission system providing electricity to Mohmand Agency at the mercy of anti-social elements.
The company has to recover Rs1.6 billion arrears from the power consumers of Shabqader.
“There appears no possibility to recover these arrears from the tribal areas,” the Pesco chief executive said.
The destruction of tower has caused a huge loss to Pesco which also suffered losses on account of suspension of power sale to Shabqader, Ghalanai and Lakkarai sub-divisions.
The Pesco chief executive said the provincial government had once again been approached for the arrest of the culprits. “Nothing has been done so far,” Brig Tahir added.
He said it would take some time to restore electricity supply to the affected areas. However, he added, Pesco had started making arrangements in this direction.
He said a replacement for the destroyed tower was being arranged from Jamrud, the sub-division of Khyber Agency in Fata.
Brig Tahir said in view of the Fata consumers’ reluctance to pay power bills, Pesco had disconnected electricity supply to marble factories. Only domestic consumers would enjoy the facility as electricity supply to defaulting industrial consumers was being suspended.
Pesco was also in the process of providing electricity to the consumers of tribal areas and settled parts of the province through separate feeders, he added.
The decision, he said, was necessary to avoid suspension of power supply to the settled areas’ consumers who pay their electricity charges regularly.
The separation of feeders would save the settled areas’ consumers from hardships, as earlier they, too, suffered because of suspension of power supply to the areas housing defaulters.
