May 21, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1429

HYDERABAD, May 20: Hundreds of people took to the streets in the city’s busiest commercial area to protest against the several hour long power outage on Tuesday.

The protesters, including shopkeepers and residents of the area, come out on the roads and blocked the main city college road, leading to worst traffic jam on the main road which is connected with other densely populated localities.

The protesters, who were around one thousand, raised slogans against the Hesco management and subdivisions officials concerned for depriving them of electricity supply that adversely affected their business activities in summer season.

They lit bonfires and raised barricades on the roads.

Incidentally, when an official of Hesco reached there some furious protesters tried to beat him up but police intervened in the matter. People let the official go on the assurance that the fault in electricity supply would be rectified soon.

Over a dozen cloth markets are located on the roads but none of them had electricity since morning while the power supply had, reportedly, restored in evening.

The markets which remained without power included Azeemushan, Islamiya, Mohammadi, City, Hafiz Mubarak Ali Shah, Memon Jamat cloth markets, Ahsan market, Chaudhry Hashmat, Cut Piece, Al-Habib markets, and etc.

A fortnight back power loom owners and other people staged a similar protest against the inefficiency of Hesco in ensuring uninterrupted power supply in those hours that were not covered in load-management schedule.

They said that the Hesco cuts off electricity supply without giving any schedule.

The shopkeepers said that the summer season was very lucrative from business point of view but they were suffering losses as customers remain stay away from markets due to heat and power breakdowns.

Most shopkeepers in these markets deal in cotton and lawn cloths which remain in high demand throughout summer.

They said they had invested heavily in their businesses this summer but were facing difficult situation due to electricity loadshedding.

A Hesco spokesman said a fault had been developed in transformers that supplies power to the area and it was in addition to the country’s load management policy that resulted in electricity breakdown.

He said that when fault was rectified power supply restored.

People said that power outage had badly hit water supply and they were not getting water in their areas.

Managing Director of Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) Bashir Awan also confirmed that these areas of markets were affected in terms of water supply which was largely due to the loadshedding either at waterworks of Wasa or in concerned area.

He informed that water supply had been resumed late evening and if electricity supply remained uninterrupted area people would get water supply on Wednesday morning as well.

According to him, Wasa had replenished its water reservoirs but the problem lies with Hesco because the non-supply of power at waterworks disturbed the whole cycle of supply of water to the city.

Meanwhile, the residents of Barrage colony also blocked a section of National Highway against disconnection of power supply by Hesco.

The disconnection followed Hesco’s warning to all those government departments that owed huge outstanding dues of power supply.

Irrigation officials came out of their offices and spoke to protesters.

They informed that electricity to their offices was also disconnected and soon irrigation department would clear the liabilities and then power supply would be restored.