SUKKUR, Oct 9: Residents of Sukkur and its adjoining towns and villages are facing frequent power outages which often stretch to over 10 hours throughout the day and when the power does come it fluctuates so much that most electrical appliances have to be kept turned off, complain consumers.

The areas of Sukkur, Ghotki, Khanpur Mahar, Pano Akil, Daharki, Mirpur Mathelo, Salehpat, Kandhra and Rohri towns which are nowadays in the grip of a severe heat-wave feel caught up between the devil and the deep sea.

The Sukkur Electric Supply Company (Sepco) which could have made it a little easier for its consumers to bear the heat has left them in the lurch when it is most needed.

Besides unannounced loadshedding, the Sepco authorities have even failed to ensure the little power supplied to consumers in between the outages was at least stable.

Sources said that Sepco line staff deliberately created faults in supply lines in connivance with grid station staff to cover line losses and fail the modern smart metering system recently installed at the power utility by the USAID.

Sepco’s executive engineer of operation division, Meer Ahmed Shaikh, told Dawn that according to new schedule, duration of loadshedding had been increased from four to six hours.

He expressed ignorance of frequent and unannounced outages, which according to consumers often stretched to nine to 10 hours.

Sepco spokesman Noor Ahmed Soomro pointed out a yawning gap between demand and supply and said the consumers required 1,000 megawatts but Sepco was getting only 600MW, forcing the power utility to impose loadshedding.