KOHAT: The consumers of Peshawar Electric Supply Company and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited here in the district are having painful days due to long power outages and low gas pressure.

The electricity supply to streetlights was also cut off in the night, causing problems to the people to go for prayers.

The gas pressure was enough to keep the burners alight for cooking, but insufficient for running generators in the absence of power. A generator mechanic, Gohar Rehman, told this scribe that he had been receiving a number of complaints and tried his best to run the generators, but finally it came to his knowledge that the real problem was low pressure of gas. He said that generators required full thrust of the gas for smooth running.

The people had to bear the hot weather in the absence of electricity during loadshedding hours and power outages of up to six hours daily. The consumers of Junglekhel, College Town and areas on Rawalpindi Road had a sleepless night the other day when electricity went off for whole night without any notice.

The consumers have appealed to the Pesco and SNGPL authorities to ensure smooth supply of electricity and gas, especially during Ramazan.

SUSPENDED: Two more officials of tehsil municipal administration, Kohat, have been suspended on corruption charges and inquiry board has been constituted to probe the charges against them.

Authorities had earlier suspended encroachment officer Mohammad Vaqas and assistant superintendent tax (rent) Bashir Ahmed for causing big loss to the institution in revenue collection.

Following that they suspended superintendent tax Farzand Ali Kayani of TMA, Kohat, and tehsil officer revenue Imtiaz Ahmed Paracha, who is now serving at TMA Gumbat, through separate notifications.

Sources said that large-scale corruption had surfaced in collection of rent from hundreds of handcart owners, revenue collection from property of TMA and illegal appointment of employees.

The bazaar union secretary general Abid Khan demanded that investigations should be done against all the four suspended employees and former tehsil municipal officer Mohammad Shoeb.

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2018