KARACHI, June 7: Traders having their business concerns in the commercial locality of Tariq Road on Thursday took to the streets and lit bonfires to give expression to their anger over prolonged power outages.

They also gave the Karachi Electric Supply Corporation 72 hours to put an end to load-shedding, threatening that otherwise they would observe a strike.

The enraged traders made it clear that if load-shedding continued, they would stop paying KESC bills.

Their violent reaction came after days of frequent and prolonged power cuts that many times continued for nine hours a day.

During their protest demonstration, they also expressed their indignation over the apathetic attitude of the KESC personnel manning the complaint centres.

The protesters set fire to old tyres and discarded furniture on the main road, creating a massive traffic jam. They also pelted incoming vehicles with stones and blocked all link roads leading to Tariq Road.

While the violent protest was under way, business activity and traffic movement in the area remained adversely affected from 3pm to 5pm. A strong contingent of police was present at the scene but chose not to intervene.

Chairman of the Tariq Road Traders Action Committee Siddique Memon strongly criticised the KESC for keeping the area without power for up to eight or nine hours daily which, he pointed out, was causing the traders heavy losses.

“Many shopkeepers have been forced to abandon their shops and do their business on pavements while their employees have been rendered jobless,” he added.

He said that their had been no let-up in load-shedding. The situation, he claimed, had gone from bad to worse, adding that the people of Karachi had been enduring the crisis for the past three months.

Mr Memon said that this was not the first time that the traders of Tariq Road had taken to the streets, and recalled that they had staged a protest demonstration outside the KESC headquarters recently and had been assured by its chief executive officer that the situation would be improved shortly.

He also wondered why the consumers were getting inflated power bills despite the fact that six- to eight-hour-long load-shedding spells a day had become a daily routine. He deplored that instead of looking into the consumers’ grievances, the utility resorted to discontinuing power supply for non-payment of bills without giving defaulters sufficient time to overcome the financial constraints caused by load-shedding.

He maintained that the loss of business had curtailed the traders’ financial strength to the extent that they were not able to pay salaries to their employees. He estimated that the situation might render some 24,000 workers jobless.

Mr Memon said that traders would seek a legal remedy against the KESC for causing a loss of business through the power cuts. He also warned that protest demonstrations, sit-ins and a two-hour shutter-down strike every day would be observed if the KESC failed to normalise the power supply situation within the 72-hour deadline.

Meanwhile, the KESC continued to maintain that load-shedding had been restricted to a maximum of three spells of two-hour duration in 24 hours.

KESC IN TROUBLE: Owners of about a dozen premises where the KESC has set up its complaint centres have been given a vacation notice apparently in view of increasing attacks by enraged power consumers, sources told Dawn. Seventy-two complaint centres are functioning in the city.