NOWSHERA: Residents of Khattak Nama area of Pabbi tehsil on Monday staged protest demonstration against prolonged power suspensions and low voltage.

The protesters belonging to Kotli Kalan, Kotli Khurd, Bakhtai and Salekhan areas gathered outside the local press club and chanted slogans against the government and Pesco. They said that despite loadshedding, they were receiving inflated power bills.

The protestors also carried placards inscribed with slogans against the local lawmakers for not paying heed to their problems.

The demonstrators said MNA Imran Khattak and MPA Mian Khalique ur Rehman had locked their hujras to people.

The people said due to the prolonged outages in Ramazan they were unable to take rest and that children, elderly and patients were the worst affected.

They said that unscheduled outages and low voltage had damaged home appliances like refrigerators, computers and televisions.

They accused the concerned SDO of Pesco of giving free hand to power thieves and imposing unbearable outages on people.

They said that Pesco meter readers sent bills without reading meters, and asked the government to take notice of the malpractice.

The protesters threatened to resort to violent agitation and block the GT road if the loadshedding problem was not solved.

KOHAT: Low voltage and unscheduled loadshedding across the district has made people’s routine lives miserable in the holy month of Ramazan. Frequent power outages and low voltage have rendered tube wells non-functional, creating severe water shortage.

People in Kohat city complained that their electric appliances got damaged when voltage suddenly jumped to 300 volts and then plunged to as low as 80 to 100 volts.

They told Dawn that they had moved several applications in the offices of SDO urban and SDO rural, but no action had been taken to rectify the situation.

They said tube well in Jarma area was damaged last month, but it couldn’t be repaired till date. The people threatened to block the Indus Highway if the power outages were not reduced.

TIMERGARA: The Jamaat-i-Islami, Samar Bagh chapter, has warned to intensify its ongoing protest campaign against prolonged power outages.

In a statement issued here on Monday, the JI leaders, including Izazul Mulk Afkari, Humayun Khan, Najamullah and Sarbiland Khan, said majority of water supply schemes had been closed due to prolonged power outages and low voltage. Samar Bagh is the home constituency of provincial senior minister, Sirajul Haq.

The JI leaders said the area people had been witnessing over 20 hours loadshedding, which had damaged many electrical appliances and created acute water shortage.

They demanded of the government to overcome the energy crisis and decrease the loadshedding duration.

Meanwhile, Lower Dir deputy commissioner, Suhail Khan, taking notice of the frequent protests against power outage, has called a meeting with Pesco officials on Tuesday (today) to resolve the matter.

Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2014