PESHAWAR: Consumers of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) have to endure several hours of additional power cuts besides the routine loadshedding all across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the name of maintenance work on transmission lines, data available with Dawn shows.

It has become a routine practice of the power distribution company to issue shutdown notices almost on daily basis of anywhere from four hours to up to 11 hours on different feeders both in the urban as well as rural areas in addition to the hours of loadshedding as per the line-losses formula formulated by the company.

No explanation has been given for the additional power cuts other than that a one line statement that the power shutdown was being done for maintenance work.

Besides, it has also not been clarified why the consumers have had to suffer additional power cuts over and over again, besides the routine loadshedding in the name of ‘maintenance work.’

Not only that, no relief and adjustment is given to consumers enduring these additional power cuts by adjusting the hours against the routine loadshedding.

Maintenance work on transmission lines blamed for frequent outages

In the past, complaints were mostly received from rural population where the inhabitants suffered prolonged power cuts, but now the residents of urban localities have been facing power suspensions for many hours.

A complaint regarding the additional power cuts filed with the Citizen’s Portal, Pakistan, was returned with the rather uncanny remark by Pesco: that the complaint has been “closed. Relief cannot be granted.”

Dawn has gone through 20 notifications issued by the power distribution company, and according to which 1,637 hours power cuts were observed on different feeders alone in October 2019.

Some feeders were subjected to power cuts multiple times on alternate days, across the province.

Seven notifications were issued in November, which showed that 435 hours power cuts were carried out in different districts/feeders of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Grid stations and feeders subjected to the power cuts in addition to the routine loadshedding in the months of October and November include the many grid stations and feeders in Peshawar, Haripur, Chakdara, Hattar, Dera Ismail Khan, Mansehra, Kohat, Mardan, Chitral, Swat, Nowshera, Swabi, Timergara, Khwazakhela, Daggar, Dhobian, Charsadda, Shabqadar, etc.

Senior officials approached for comments were found clueless on why lengthy hours of frequent power cuts were not adjusted against routine loadshedding or why consumers were subjected to loadshedding again despite having to suffer power cuts in the name of maintenance.

Even lawmakers representing their respective constituencies have been found to be clueless about Pesco’s subtle way of carrying out power cuts in addition to loadshedding even on the best performing feeders.

Skeptics say that this is being done to further cut losses. But the problem, say some experts, is that areas with less power losses were also being subjected to lengthy power cuts in the name of maintenance.

Dawn understands that a senior lawyer is contemplating filing a writ petition against Pesco in this regard.

According to Pesco spokesman Shaukat Afzal, there is zero loadshedding on 230 feeders as the losses there were below 10 per cent.

At least 113 feeders have to face 16 hours load management (loadshedding) under the policy of the power company.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2019