July 22, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 25, 1427

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SAHIWAL, July 21: Wapda has increased loadshedding from three hours a day to 16 hours after the address of the president.

It had been carrying out loadshedding for three hours — two hours during the day and one hour at night —- but after the address of the president it enhanced the loadshedding to eight hours in the urban areas and to 16 hours in the rural areas.

It suspends electricity supply for one hour after every two hours in the urban areas, while the residents of the rural areas faced 16 hours’ load shedding without any break.

Demonstrations were held outside Muhajireen mosque against the load shedding. Protests were also reported at Kasswal, Noorshah, Kamir, Iqbal Nagar Ghaziabad, Qadirabad and Gamber against Wapda.

Meanwhile, long hours of electricity suspension in hot and humid weather claimed six lives in the district. Zahida, Hamida Begum and Gulshan Sarwar were admitted to the DHQ hospital where they died some hours later. Two newborn babies died in the children ward of the hospital while an old man, Akbar, died in Chichawatni.

KASUR: There is no let-up in power outages and unscheduled loadshedding despite an assurance by the president on Thursday.

Eight to 10 hours unscheduled loadshedding in five to seven switch-offs was reported from various parts of the city and the district.

Duration of loadshedding was in industrial areas was even longer.

Meanwhile all leading businessmen and organizations, including the Kasur Traders Federation, have criticised Lesco for its failure to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

In its meeting on Friday, the Kasur bar was also critical of Lesco.