September 25, 2006	Monday	Ramazan 1, 1427

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LAHORE, Sept 24: The sudden and unusually long power breakdown across Punjab brought in its wake rumours about change in the government, besides causing a great deal of inconvenience to the people on Sunday.

The prolonged power disruption made the people apprehensive of the conditions in Islamabad as they could not find reasons for the power breakdown through the bogged down electronic media which created a communication crisis.

And the confusion made many the anxious people contact newspaper offices to know about the reality. “Has something happened to the setup in Islamabad or the president,” was the question most callers asked, instead of knowing what went wrong with the power supply.

Cell phones continued to work but the internet service collapsed as a result of the power failure, robbing the people of the most convenient source of information.

The newspaper offices continued to receive calls even from remote cities in the province till the power supply was restored at some places in Lahore and elsewhere in the evening. The callers included politicians and government officers.

Life was affected by the power breakdown in the length and breadth of the province and business activities too remained disrupted. Factories lost half of the working day as the power went off around 2pm and was not restored till the closing hours.

The traders of Multan and Faisalabad — the business hub of Punjab — particularly faced ordeal of losing trade.

In Lahore, people first took the disruption as a routine affair of Sunday. But as the supply was not restored for a few hours they started contacting Lesco offices to register their complaints, knowing that something has happened to the main lines.

As for the natural inconvenience, water supply remained suspended and people found it difficult to prepare meals and wash clothes. The weather conditions, however, were not all that bad indoors.

A lot many people thronged general stores to buy candles and battery cells for torches to make sure that there will not be much difficulty at the time of the first Sehri of Ramazan. The power supply was partially restored in the city and elsewhere in Punjab between 7 and 10pm but many colonies were without it till late at night. There were, however, repeated fluctuations that kept the people worried.

A rush of motorists was witnessed at the city’s petrol stations most of which could not operate because of lack of power. Those having generators sold petrol and diesel. But the CNG stations remained inoperative because they could not run their machines on generators.

Patients faced problems in numerous city hospitals and clinics as doctors found it difficult to treat them. The emergency wards, however, continued to treat patients as power was supplied there with the help of generators.

The Civil Aviation Authority immediately put the system on generators to run it uninterrupted and said the flight schedule was not disturbed.

Railways said it did not face major problem on its Lahore-Khanewal section due to the electricity failure as most of the express trains are pulled by diesel engines.

Reports from Dera Ghazi Khan said the administration deployed police around official buildings to avert any public reaction following the breakdown.