KARAK: The residents of Chountra blocked Karak-Palosa Sar road to protest power outages at the time of Sehri and Iftar.

The protesters, led by former councillor Hajat Shah, chanted slogans against the authorities for observing 18-hour power loadshedding in the area. They said that government didn’t honour its promise of not observing loadshedding at Sehri and Iftar.

The protesters said that they would not pay bills if local office of Pesco did not make sure smooth supply of electricity to the consumers of the area. They said that people were facing shortage of drinking water owing power outages.

The protesters said that they would not tolerate unscheduled loadshedding anymore.

Meanwhile, the residents of Ghundi Mir Khankhel have demanded of the government to upgrade the local basic health centre to civil hospital.

Ghundi Welfare Organisation chairman Watan Bad Shah and executive members Haji Jamal, Abdur Rehman and Mohammad Rahim told a meeting of local elders on Thursday that there was a single health centre for 30,000 people of the area.

They said that the health centre was established 32 years ago but no leady doctor was deputed there. They said that most of the serious patients died before they could get treatment as they could not be shifted timely to the district headquarters hospital.

The speakers said that the basic health unit should be upgraded to improve health services in the area. They demanded of the government to set up a maternity home in the union council as women of the areas faced shortage of healthcare facilities. They said that pregnant women were treated by untrained midwives in the area that caused complications in most of the cases.

The speakers said that mortality rate of mothers and infants in the union council was highest in the entire district. They demanded of the government to upgrade the local health centre without any delay.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2017