June 22, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1429

SUKKUR, June 21: An All Parties Conference (APC) has decided to launch a protest movement against the Hyderabad Electric Company (Hesco), following unannounced loadshedding for hours and issuance of detection bills to consumers.

The APC was organised by the Sukkur Citizen Action Committee at Madressa Ghausia, Sukkur, on Friday to discuss the highhandedness of Hesco officials with the consumers. Maulana Musharraf Mahmood Qadri presided over the APC, which was attended by the representatives of different political, social and religious parties, including Maulana Khair Muhammad Qureshi, Abdul Haque Mahar, Hizbullah Jakhro, Afzal Hussain, Mohammad Iqbal Memon, Mushtaq Qadri, Haji Adam and others.

It decided to launch a campaign against the Hesco. In the first phase, a complaint centre would be established at clock tower Sukkur, where complaints regarding excess reading billing, detection billing and atrocities of Hesco officials with the consumers would be registered, while in the second phase, the participants of APC would observe token hunger strike in front of office of the Superintending Engineer Hesco Sukkur Circle and as a last resort, a call would be given to stop payment of electricity bills.

The meeting criticised 10 to 12 hours loadshedding and maintained that this was being done to cover up the line losses and corruption.

They said that business activities were suffering badly due to unannounced loadshedding for many hours and most of the traders have sacked their employees.

They alleged that Hesco employees were earning extra money by providing illegal connections to their favourite consumers. They said that heavy transformers were installed at the premises of influential persons and their localities were also exempted from loadshedding.

They said that emergency operations were cancelled in the hospitals due to loadshedding.