KOHAT: Frequent power outages and low voltage have become a routine in parts of Kohat city linked to the City-III feeder as adjacent rural areas where consumers are allegedly involved in huge electricity theft have been put on the same feeder.

The City-III feeder developed a major fault in Mohammadzai village on Hangu road on Thursday night and the repair work was in progress till filing of this report on Friday night.

Residents said that usually the power fluctuations were so immense that the consumers had to disconnect supply to their homes by turning off the main switches to save their electronic gadgets. They said that it happened all the year round on the City-III feeder and despite appeals by them no remedy had been provided to solve the problem.

A senior officer of the Pesco in Peshawar, who had worked in Kohat, told this correspondent that it had been decided over a decade ago to put all load of rural areas near the city, where theft was common, on the City-III feeder instead of equally dividing the load on all feeders.

Apparently, this decision was made to provide relief to the consumers in the cantonment and KDA Town.

The consumers of City-III alleged that they were being subjected to frequent power outages all the year and they had to face disruption of power supply after slight rain, winds and during summer season. They said that transformers in their area were also overloaded.

They alleged that the Pesco officials had put all the load on City-III feeder to ensure smooth supply of electricity to the City-I and City-II areas, including the KDA Town and cantonment areas.

When contacted, a Pesco official at the complaint office rejected all the allegations and said that the schedule of loadshedding was issued by the Peshawar office to the main grid station located on Rawalpindi road.

Published in Dawn, November 8th, 2014