June 03, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 28, 1429

HYDERABAD, June 2: Hesco chief Guftar Ahmed Anjum on Monday directed the company’s circle managers to disconnect power supply to the taluka municipal administrations, which had defaulted on payment of dues.

A spokesman for the company said that he issued the instructions in the wake of release of funds by the Sindh government to its defaulting organisations.

Mr Anjum urged the officials to ensure load-shedding was carried out according to schedule, and avoid unannounced load-shedding. If power was switched off to an area without any cogent reason and in violation of announced schedule, strict action would be taken against the grid station in-charge and other officials concerned, he warned.

He assigned chief engineer operation, Shaikh Nazeer Ahmed, the responsibility to ensure 100 per cent recovery of outstanding dues in Sukkur and Larkana circles and chief engineer technical, Habibullah Khilji, to monitor recovery in other circles.

Mr Anjum stressed that nothing less than 100 per cent recovery would be acceptable and issued directives to disconnect power supply to signboards, shut down power supply to marriage halls during night and switch off 50 per cent of streetlights.

He expressed dissatisfaction over the performance of the managers of operation circle and directed them to control line losses and power theft and recover 100 per cent outstanding dues. Bills should be issued in accordance with meter reading, he said.

JUP: The senior vice-president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan, Sahibzada Abul Khair Mohammad Zubair, has ridiculed the government’s power conservation measures, saying moving clocks forward by an hour, announcing holiday on Friday and ordering closure of shops by 9pm are no solution to the power crisis.

In a faxed statement on Monday, Mr Zubair urged the government to prepare a workable plan for immediate implementation and in the meantime the government should muster courage to arrest the powerful electricity thieves.

SELF-IMMOLATION THREAT: A man whose services as watchman were terminated eight years ago by the Wapda’s Tandojam office threatened at a news conference here on Monday that he would commit self-immolation if he was not reinstated.

Gul Mohammad Khaskheli alleged that the authority dismissed him eight years ago without giving any reason and also misplaced his file. The prime minister had sought an explanation from Wapda officials over his application and he was told that his file was untraceable, he claimed.

He wondered how a file, part of government record, could be misplaced and warned that if he did not get justice even during the people’s government, he would commit self-immolation outside the Wapda office.

To a question as to what took him so long to get justice, he said that he had been submitting applications to higher authorities over the eight years but they all went down the drain. It was for the first time that a prime minister had taken notice of his plight, he said.