KOHAT: People here have urged Wapda to declare Kohat as Peshawar Electric Supply Company’s (Pesco) circle for establishment of more grid stations in the district.

They said that a district with over 40,000 registered consumers was usually termed a division, but Kohat had not been declared as such though there were over 100,000 consumers here. Similarly, where there are more than two divisions a Pesco circle is established.

Presently, there were 35 feeders operating in the grid station located on Kohat-Rawalpindi Road and all of them were overloaded due to which Pesco had to cut off electricity supply without any schedule. Resultantly, the problem of extreme low voltage was being faced by electricity consumers.

The residents said that the government should establish 132kV grid station in Jarma for the southern villages, tehsils and towns and make the Ghamkol grid station fully operational to address the problem of low voltage and frequent power cuts.

They also demanded establishment of a workshop for repair of transformers in Kohat, as faulty transformers were usually taken to Nowshera for repair from where they arrived back after a fortnight. The workshop in Kohat would also benefit the southern districts, four tribal agencies and as many Frontier Regions.

They asked the chairman of the Pesco board of directors, Malik Asad, who belongs to Kohat, to help the people of Kohat by conveying their demands and concerns to the higher Wapda authorities.

Meanwhile, official circles have demanded that the Rs300 million fund of KP-39 be transferred to the district council, Kohat, from tehsil municipal administration, Lachi, due to the absence of competent technical staff there.

They alleged that an executive engineer working in Lachi was not taking interest in his work, as his retirement was due in the next few months.

The officials demanded of the KP Assembly Deputy Speaker Imtiaz Shahid to take notice of the affairs in his constituency and approve projects for his backward area.

Published in Dawn, September 7th, 2014