DADU, Jan 27: The Zila Council Dadu has unanimously passed a resolution against power shutdowns and detection and inflated bills and demanded that the Wapda chairman and the Hesco chief should look into the alleged illegal practices and provide relief to the consumers.

In all, 39 resolutions were adopted in a session of the council on Tuesday, presided over by Naib Nazim Zahid Hussain Jatoi. Raising the issues of power failures/suspensions and inflated bills, Shamsuddin Memon and Dr Hidayatullah Chandio alleged that the SDOs of the Khairpur Nathan Shah and Maher talukas were compelling consumers to pay them bribes and had issued many detection bills to consumers who refused to bribed them.

They complained that if any consumer did bribe the Hesco officials, he received a heavy detection bill, and the power supply to his area was disconnected.

Another council member, Muhammad Nawaz Bughio, said illegal power connections had been acquired by people in the district with the connivance of Hesco officials who received huge amounts as bribes for such connections. The electricity supply to hundreds of villages and towns was suspended from 10 to 12 hours daily to make for line losses, he added.

Council member Ibrahim Rind said the UC nazims had sent complaints to high officials, but they had not paid any attention to the illegal practices, forcing thousands of power consumers to face great hardship.

A unanimously-passed resolution demanded of the Wapda chairman and the Hesco chief executive to end the practices of detection and inflated bills and loadsheddings. It also urged the authorities to inform the area people about power shutdowns 24 hours in advance.

Woman council member Imamzadi Shaikh moved a resolution and pointed out that the post of chairman of the district Zakat and Ushr Committee, Dadu, had been lying vacant for eight months, and Rs500 million funds of Zakat and Ushr had not been distributed among the Mustahqeen. The house adopted the resolution and demanded that the Sindh government should fill the post.