SHANGLA: Residents of Puran, Makhozi and Martung areas on Friday blocked the main Puran-Alpuri Road to protest excessive power loadshedding and low voltage.

The protesters blasted the Peshawar Electricity Supply Company (Pesco) for observing over 20 hours of outages in the hot weather.

Local Syed Ghafar Khan claimed 80 per cent of consumers in Puran tehsil paid their bills regularly, but even then Pesco subjected them to prolonged outages.

He said low voltage had damaged their homes appliances.

Noor Mohammad, chairman of a local committee, said the elected representatives had no interest in addressing the public issues. He said the government should supply electricity to the people of Shangla from the locally-built 72MW Khan Khwar power station and 12MW Karora hydropower station.

Elder Najamullah said the local MNA and MPA had failed to raise the issue of power outages at the assembly floor. He said people of Puran, Martung and Makhozi had been facing electricity loadshedding and low voltage for last two years.

The protesters threatened that they would again come onto roads on July 25 if Pesco did not end power blackouts.

CHEQUES EXPIRED: The differently-able persons have complained that cheques given to them by Pakistan Baitul Mal have expired as the Alpuri branch of the Bank of Khyber has failed to open their accounts.

Talking to Dawn on Friday, the physically-challenged persons said immediately after getting Rs10,000 cheques each a month and a half ago they had applied for opening the account, but the cheques got expired as the accounts were yet to be created.

Almas Khan said the branch manager and other staffers were telling them that opening of their accounts was in progress.

Ziaur Rehman from Basi area of Alpuri said those who had applied for opening accounts in private banks had received their compensation amount.

The differently-able persons demanded action against the bank manager and other staffers for causing them distress.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2021