KOHAT: Various areas of the Kohat city, particularly the Garden Colony, have been facing water shortage for the last two days, complain local residents.

They said water shortage in Garden Colony surfaced in every summer. They said despite several appeals the WSSC did not fix the problem.

Meanwhile, secretary to the adviser to the chief minister, Ehsan Ayaz visited the area along with WSSC supervisor Kaleemullah and met the people. He directed the officials to expedite work on laying of new pipelines and release water two times a day.

The city dwellers said when they contacted the manger operations of WSSC he made the same old excuse that power outages hampered running of the tubewells.

Meanwhile, the people have started getting connections from the street pumps by collecting money.

In Mohallah Parachagan, the consumers collected Rs500 from each house to get connections.

Meanwhile, the consumers complained about frequent power outages and low voltage, which damaged the home appliances.

They said pending upgradation of the old Rawalpindi Road grid station for over a decade was causing the frequent power suspensions.

General secretary petroleum association of Kohat, Noor Islam, and president of Tajir action committee, Abid Khan said the delay in construction of a 220KV grid station announced by MNA Shehrayar Afridi in 2013 had yet to be materialised, which had worsened the situation.

They said the old grid station was overloaded and immediately required two 40MVA transformers. They also demanded installation of a 40MVA transformer at the 66KV Cantonment grid station.

Pesco SDO Ehsanullah said the company had approved Rs40 million for upgradation of the Rawalpindi Road grid station, but intervention of the MPs was necessary for early release of the funds.

He said the grid station had completed its life span of 40 years and required complete overhaul.

Meanwhile, state minister for Kashmir affairs Sheharyar Afridi met federal minister for water and power Umer Ayub and apprised him about the problems of loadshedding and low voltage in Kohat.

In a statement, the MNA said the federal minister agreed to approve new feeders and transformers. He said construction of a new grid station also came under discussion.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2020