HYDERABAD: Harried by oppressive heat and enraged at power utilities utter failure to give them some respite in the form of smooth power supply, people took to the streets in many Sindh towns on Saturday and staged protests, some violent, against prolonged loadshedding.

In Hyderabad, armed with sticks and stones residents of Liaquat Colony broke into the office of Liaquat Colony sub-division of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco), and burnt it down during a protest against prolonged power loadshedding, frequent breakdowns and continuous fluctuation after the power supply was restored.

Residents of Hirabad, Pak Colony, Latifabad Unit 10, 11 and12, Katcha Qilla, Paretabad and Gari Khata Chowk also complained about excessive loadshedding throughout long summer days and nights.

A Hesco spokesperson said that there was tripping for a while when the protesters set ablaze the Hesco sub-division’s office. Hesco had repaired all seven faulty pole-mounted transformers (PMTs) and managed to restore power late on Friday night, he said.

He said that a case had been registered against 25 rioters at Pinyari police station on behalf of the power utility. Hesco required 1,000 MW for its entire system but it had 700MW to make do with, he said.

SUKKUR: A large number of doctors held a demonstration and a sit-in on the premises of Jacobabad civil hospital in protest against prolonged loadshedding.

Dr Nazir Ahmed Soomro, Noor Mohammad Mugheri and Yar Mohammad Mugheri who led the protest said that Jacobabad was the hottest town in the province as compared to other towns where it felt completely unjustified to carry out announced and unannounced loadshedding for long hours as the summer heat was increasingly becoming unbearable for people.

They said the general public as well as patients were experiencing great hardship due to frequent outages and said that despite announcement by the high-ranking government functionaries about decrease in loadshedding during the month of Ramazan people had received no respite from the menace.

KHAIRPUR: Wearied by extreme heat, people preferred to remain indoors throughout the day as sun continued to rain down fire, causing a lull in activities of normal life.

Trade activities also remained lacklustre and bazaars, markets and other public places gave a deserted look.

BADIN: A large number of villagers blocked Pangrio-Hyderabad road for two years at Waryial Shah bus stop near Tando Bago town on Saturday to register protest against Hesco officials for their failure to restore power supply to 150 villages for the past 20 days.

The protesters’ leaders told journalists that strong winds had uprooted electricity poles supplying power to their villages 15 days ago but Hesco officials did not bother to re-erect them and when they requested them at last to do the needful they demanded bribe for it.

They warned if the power supply was not restored by Monday they would resume the protest.

Similar protests were staged in other towns of the district.

MIRPURKHAS: Enraged residents of Soomra locality, Bhansinghabad and Rahim Nagar held a demonstration on Mirwah road in protest against unannounced loadshedding.

The protesters blocked the road by burning tyres as they raised slogans against Hesco officers. They complained to journalists that they had not been supplied power for eight hours and despite several hours long outages Hesco kept issuing highly inflated bills.

They alleged that unscheduled loadshedding was adding to people’s hardship. It had dulled business activities and disrupted water supply.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play