July 12, 2007	Thursday	Jamadi-us-Sani 26, 1428

UPPER DIR, July 11: A large number of people, including nazims and naib nazims of 19 union councils, on Wednesday held a rally in protest against loadshedding in the district. The district and sessions judge also took notice of the power failure and summoned officials of the Chukiatan grid station to explain their position.

The protesting people marched to the district courts and recorded their protest with the senior civil judge. The Upper Dir nazim is reported to have asked the grid station staff to beef up security in view of the growing anger among people over the frequent power breakdown.

People have been experiencing prolonged loadshedding in the scorching heat. They complained that besides scheduled loadshedding, the grid station used to suspend power for hours.

Sources said that the protection division, Mardan, had identified a fault in the newly-installed isolator at the Wari grid station, but despite the removal of isolator the problem of tripping continued. The protection division now said the fault was in the breaker of the 66KV Timergara grid station, but it was yet to be rectified, the sources added.

They said that failure on the part of the protection division to remove a minor fault was causing multiple problems for the people of Dir Upper and Chitral. Tripping continues after an interval of every five to 10 minutes. The people of Upper Dir have been spending sleepless nights for the last two months.

In-charge Gul Sher and an official of the Chukiatan grid station, summoned by district and sessions judge Anwar Ali Khan, held officials of the Timergara grid station responsible for the power failure and said that tripping took place because of extra burden on the line.

The judge observed that since Upper Dir had no industrial units there should be no question of burden on the line. He said people did not have electricity even for two hours in 24 hours which was not only creating problems for patients and students but also disrupting the court proceedings.

He said that if there was any fault in the line they should talk to their high-ups for its removal. The judge warned the officials that in future such unscheduled loadshedding would not be tolerated and no excuse would be accepted.