SUKKUR, Jan 1: Despite repeated assurances by the power utility that it will cut duration of loadshedding during Muharram, almost all major cities and towns of the province continue to suffer prolonged outages stretching from 5 to 20 hours daily, sparking protests by members of the Shia community in at least two towns on Thursday.

In spite of cutting duration of outages during Muharram, the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) has increased its frequency and duration with the sighting of moon for Muharram.

Reports said that outages from midnight to early morning had kept people awake throughout the night for fear of criminals, who might take advantage of the darkness.

The regional control centre of Jamshoro had issued a loadshedding schedule for upper Sindh during the last week of December, which said eight hour loadshedding would be observed during 24 hours.

But just two days after issuance of schedule, frequency and duration of loadshedding had been increased to 15 to 20 hours without issuance of a new schedule.

Local Hesco officers put the blame on tripping of 132 KV transmission line of Kot Addu Power Company, which they claimed had caused huge shortfall in generation. The situation would ease after the line had been repaired, they said.

But a shift engineer at KAPCO who gave his name as Zaheer dismissed Hesco official’s claim and said the transmission line had not tripped and the system was intact and running to full capacity.

Sources in the Hesco said that prolonged loadshedding in upper Sindh was aimed at covering line losses and the duration of outages was much longer than the actual shortfall in generation.

Hundreds of protesters held a rally and staged a sit-in at Clock Tower roundabout in Mirpur Mathelo in protest against long power outages.

The protestors led by Shia Ulema Council leaders condemned Hesco and said that instead of providing relief to people during Ashura, the company had resorted to 15-20 hour outages.

They said that power shutdown during Muharram Majalis and processions could result in untoward incidents for which the government and Hesco would be held responsible.

They demanded that the Hesco authorities, federal minister for water and power and chairman of Wapda take notice of the company’s highhandedness and rid people of the menace of outages.

DDO Muhsin Hassan Dayo and SPO Mirpur Mathelo Abdul Khaliq Wagan later negotiated with protesters and persuaded them end protest on assurance that they would take up their issues with the high-ups.

In Jacobabad, members of the Shiaan-i-Hyder-i-Karrar held a rally in protest against loadshedding and complained that unannounced loadshedding had compounded their difficulties.

They termed power outage artificial and expressed the fear that it mioght lead to some untoward incident. They threatened to block the highway if hesco continued with loadshedding during Majlis-i-Aza. In Badin, people had to go through 15 long hours of agony caused by power outage, which they said was a product of line losses and corrupt practices by Hesco officials.

Power consumers Ali Akbar, Mehboob Ali, Roshan and Abbas said that the company suffered line losses when officials allowed illegal connections and use of more than sanctioned limit of power in marriage halls in return for illegal gratification.“We agree with the Wapda that the department is facing power shortage and we are prepared to share the burden but we will never allow corrupt Hesco officials to make sell power illegally and pass on the burden to them,” they said.

In Shikarpur, a large number of power consumers took to the streets and held a demonstration at Lakhi-Gate Tower Chowk in protest against unannounced loadshedding for more than five hours.

The protesters complained that the loadshedding stretched to 12-14 hours daily and threatened to launch a protest drive if the company did not stop it immediately.

In Hyderabad, several parts of the city remained without power for several hours and according to Hesco spokesman power outage was part of load management announced by the federal government.

He said that Hesco’s share in total deficit of energy came to 300 megawatts.

Power supply was also suspended from NTPS grid station under directives of National Power Despatch Centre (NPDC) as part of load management plan.