CHITRAL: The protesters in Reshun village of Upper Chitral on Sunday temporarily reopened the main Chitral-Shandur Road to traffic, giving a one-week ‘deadline’ to the provincial government to accept their long-standing demands regarding the electricity tariff.
The road, which connects different parts of the region, has been blocked at Ramdas Chowk for the last 48 hours, causing massive disruptions for commuters, with only a brief one-hour reprieve granted on Saturday evening.
Syed Sardar Hussain Shah, president of the local action committee, announced the temporary suspension of the road blockade after removing the obstacles. However, he clarified that the road had been cleared to facilitate the public, saying the sit-in at the site would continue until their demands were met.
“We are giving a one-week ultimatum to the authorities to fulfil genuine demands of the residents of Reshun, Zait and Kuragh villages, which have been pending for the last four years,” Mr. Shah stated.
Ask govt to resolve tariff issue
Elaborating on the issue, Mr. Shah reiterated that consumers from the three affected villages were supplied electricity directly by the Pakhtunkhwa Energy Development Organisation (PEDO) powerhouse in Reshun. However, they are being billed unfairly according to the national tariff rates of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco), which are three times higher than local hydel rates.
He argued that following the successful restoration of the 4.2-megawatt Reshun hydropower station, there remains no legal or moral justification for the PEDO authorities to charge local consumers the commercial Pesco rate of Rs15 and above per unit, instead of the subsidised local rate of Rs5 per unit.
The action committee chief issued a stern warning to the provincial government, stating that if a formal notification revising the tariff is not issued within the one-week deadline, the local population will launch an indefinite blockade of the Chitral-Shandur Road.
Women community leaders also addressed the demonstration, warning the administration that if the government failed to honour its commitment, women and children would also join the protest and block the highways.
Prominent leaders of the action committee including Sahibuddin, Amirullah, Ishfaq Ahmed, Munir Ahmed, Chiragh, Maulana Ikram and Abdur Rab vowed to continue agitation until justice was delivered to the power consumers of Upper Chitral.
Published in Dawn, August 31st, 2026
