MANSEHRA/KOHAT: Residents of various localities in Mansehra on Tuesday took to the streets against unscheduled loadshedding, while in Kohat people complained about zero loadshedding in the cantonment at the cost of 16-18 hours of outages in other neighbourhoods.

A large number of people took to the streets and blockaded Milad chowk in Oghi, chanting slogans against the federal government for failing to provide respite to people in the fasting month.

The protesters set tyres on fire causing inconvenience to motorists.

Speaking on the occasion, president of transporters’ association Mohammad Mumtaz said PML-N-led federal government had failed to realise its promise of ending loadshedding, and asked the prime minister to step down.

“If PM cannot address energy crisis then he should quit the government as people are dying because of prolonged power outages in sizzling heat,” he said.

Mr Mumtaz said MNA Mohammad Safdar, son-in-law of PM, made hollow claims of making Oghi and Torghar the modern cities of country.

The road was reopened to traffic after several hours when Pesco officials and police assured the protesters of reducing loadshedding duration.

The people of Shinkari, Baffa, Balakot also held protests against prolonged loadshedding and demanded an end to it.

Meanwhile, the newly elected representatives of local governments from Datta area threatened to agitate if government didn’t end prolonged outages in the district.

Speaking at a press conference, the district councillor-elect Malik Naveed and tehsil councillor-elect Syed Assad Shah said the Pesco had been observing loadshedding at Sehr and Iftar hours.

In Kohat, people complained that while there was no loadshedding at all in the cantonment, 12 to 18 hours of outages were observed in urban and rural areas.

They lamented that Pesco had connected city lines to the villages on Hangu road where kunda system was rampant, thus adding to the loadshedding hours in the city areas.

They also complained about low voltage, which damaged their electric appliances like ACs, water pumps, refrigerators, TVs and room coolers.

When contacted, an official of Pesco, Wajidullah, told Dawn the cantonment areas were supplied power by the Military Electric Supply Services and not through the general grid station.

About enormous loadshedding, he explained that under the Pesco policy the areas where power theft was common faced extra hours of outages.

He said the problem of low voltage and fluctuation was due to some technical faults in the system which were being removed.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2015

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