LARKANA, Aug 7: About 30,000 people have been forced to shift to other places because of power outages in parts of Larkana for the ninth day on Sunday.

The area of Leela Abad, Jhangal Shah and parts of Mohammadpur Mohalla have been without power because of faults in four transformers.

It is learnt that 19 transformers feeding the city are faulty and the Sukkur Electricity supply Corporation (Sepco) has done little to repair them.

The federal secretary for water and power Imtiaz Kazi was informed about the situation and he asked Sepco's Chief Executive Officer Mohammed Moosa Mirbahar on Saturday to get the transformers immediately repaired.

Attempts to contact the Superintending Engineer of Sepco, Larkana, failed and the cell phone of executive engineer City-II was powered off.

Line Superintendent of Jinnahbagh feeder, Mansoor Ahmed Bhutto, told this correspondent that three transformers would be fixed by Sunday night to restore power supply to some of the affected areas.

Roshan Kalhoro, a resident of Waleed Mohalla, said that the transformer in his locality had been out of order for 18 days and Sepco personnel refused to even register complaints.

Ibrahim Abro, a resident of Haidri Mohalla, said the transformer supplying power to the area frequently gets out of order and alleged that Sepco personnel charge money to repair it. This time the transformer has not been functioning for eight days.

Babloo Shaikh, a trader dealing in electronic appliances, said that a 100kv transformer installed near Tonga Stand was emitting smoke and no one was there to do something about it.

Tarique Nazeer, president of the Federation of Traders Associations, said unscheduled and prolonged power outages had made the situation unbearable.

The power managers, he added, were doing nothing to improve the situation.

Khair Mohammed Shaikh, vice-president of the Larkana chapter of the PPP, said that Sepco had provided 10 new transformers to replace the damaged ones. He said more transformers were needed to cope with the situation.

He said unauthorised connections had been putting excessive load on transformers. He demanded a ruthless operation against defaulters and power thieves.

He accused Sepco managers of having failed to launch such a campaign although police had promised to support them.