HYDERABAD: Members of National and provincial assemblies of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) have criticised unannounced and prolonged loadshedding in the city, which has badly affected business activities.

In a joint statement issued here on Wednesday, they said that almost eight hour long loadshedding was being reported in different parts of the city for no other reason but to overcome line losses and the practice was severely hitting poor consumers. Such damaging policies could not be accepted, they said.

They demanded an end to the prolonged loadshedding and said the outage affected water supply and disposal of sewage as pumping stations remained without power.

They criticised performance of Water and Sanitation Agency and said that officers posted by Sindh government in the agency had destroyed the civic body because these officers were only interested in minting money.

They said that silence of local bodies’ minister over poor civic conditions in the city was tantamount to patronisation of the corrupt officers. The consumers who paid their bills honestly were receiving detection and inflated bills and also facing penalties for no crime of theirs, they said.

They urged prime minister, federal minister for energy and chief executive officer of Hyderabad Electric Supply Company to take notice of the situation and resolve consumers’ problems.

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2022