GILGIT, Dec 9: The Northern Areas Public Works Department has (NAPWD) failed to overcome power crisis that has been badly affecting life in the Gilgit town for two months, shopkeepers told Dawn on Sunday.

They said the NAPWD executive engineer had assured the town people of installing a four-kilowatt generator within a week to overcome the power crisis but, they regretted, nothing had been done yet.

They complained that the electricity supply to the city was being suspended for almost 50 hours a week, incurring them business losses.

NAPWD sources said the city needed 16mw, but its production was only three megawatts, being supplemented by two megawatts from thermal power units.

Due to the prolonged drought, they said, water resources and the water-level in the Kargah Stream had been declining.

Talking to Dawn, some affected people termed the city’s power distribution system faulty, saying that the system was so because higher officials had been “fed by special power and water lines.”

They accused the people living near the power feeders of using illegal connections (Kundas), causing frequent power shutdowns.

The residents alleged that the higher officials of the NAPWD had provided special connections to their friends and relatives.

Northern Areas Deputy Chief Executive Fida Muhammad Nashad said the problem would continue for some more months until the work on the ongoing Jaglote Power Project was completed.

The NAPWD sources said that in the Northern Areas, hydropower plants had been set up to meet domestic demands, but consumers used high-voltage appliances, which resulted in the power crisis in winter.

The sources identified power theft and rapid urbanization as two other factors, which were adding to the crisis.