BAHAWALPUR, June 11 Decrying unscheduled and long duration of loadshedding, the Bahawalpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry has demanded of Pepco to split Mepco into two circles by creating a new Bahawalpur electric power company with its jurisdiction within three districts -- Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar and Rahim Yar Khan.

The BCCI's water, power and gas standing committee, at its meeting held here on Friday, sounded a note of warning to Mepco to review duration of loadshedding and keep its timings of outages on a par with other big cities. It said industrial units were facing multiple problems because of the prolonged and intermittent loadshedding.

The committee said Mepco, already covering a large area, was unable to manage fair distribution of electricity generation which was causing a great deal of problems to consumers. In addition, it said there could also be a possible reduction in line losses with the introduction of Bepco.

The chamber also urged the authorities concerned to give preference to the division and, except for Bahawalpur, no other circle should be created.

The meeting also demanded a separate power feeder for small industrial estates where the units faced power crisis and installation of power connections to those tubewells whose owners had deposited their demand notices.

INAUGURATED Bahawalpur Corps Commander Lt-Gen Naeem Khalid Lodhi on Friday inaugurated a solar energy system at the Garrison Recreational Park here on Friday.

The system, which will generate 14,000 watts of electricity daily, has been installed by army engineers in the shortest period. According to an ISPR press release, the demonstration of the solar energy system was successfully carried out at the inaugural ceremony. Col Muhammad Irfan Nadeem briefed the corps commander about the cost, uses and effectiveness of the system.