June 08, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 03, 1429

LARKANA, June 7: Larkana and Qambar-Shahdadkot districts face the worst power outage at this time of summer season when mercury normally touches 49 to 50 degree Celsius in the districts and their adjoining areas.

People spend sleepless nights amid power outage, which is sometimes cut to entire district by the Load Distribution Centre of Hesco, in Hyderabad.

The load distribution centre on Saturday suspended power supply to almost entire district from 5.10 pm to 6.10 pm. Sources in the Hesco said that they were unable to control this kind of power shutdown, as it was totally regulated from Hyderabad.

Sources in the load distribution centre said that the power supply was being suspended not only to Larkana but to entire interior of Sindh.

In addition, the two districts experience six to seven hours unscheduled loadshedding. Another source said that Larkana was getting less power supply from Guddu Thermal power station and decreased power supply was leading to ‘tripping’ problem in the city.

Consumers complained that long duration of loadshedding and frequent tripping had drastically affected their business and caused damages to electrical appliances.

They said that on the one hand Hesco had resorted to loadshedding and on the other it regularly sent inflated and incorrect bills. The local Hesco officials had developed a novel way of cutting power supply to specific areas by installing ‘de-fittings’ in different localities, the sources said.