KP Police, Pesco in a fix over protest against load-shedding

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police and the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) are grappling with widespread protests against severe power breakdowns across the province.

The Pesco authorities have sent a report to the federal government for lodging cases against at least 10 elected representatives, including members of the national and provincial Assemblies, tehsil nazim and village council nazims, for forcefully switching on 99 feeders on June 18 and 54 feeders on June 19.

The provincial government has already directed that there would be no loadshedding for over 12 hours in any area of the province. Also, the police have been directed not to lodge cases against any member of the National Assembly (MNA) or any member of the provincial assembly (MPA).

People are protesting that even 12 hours is a long duration for power breakdowns that makes one hour of power suspension after every hour.

Unprecedented power breakdowns triggered protests across the province in the last few days, even during Eid. In many areas protestors, led by their respective MNAs and MPAs in some towns, took control of their grid stations and resumed power supply to their villages.

The Pesco authorities have submitted many applications in the last few days for lodging FIRs against the protestors and the lawmakers who were leading the mob.However, police are so far avoiding FIRs against the lawmakers, especially after witnessing the chief minister himself entering a grid station in Dera Ismail Khan and taking control of the system there.

In Peshawar, after several complaints, an FIR was lodged by the Rahman Baba Police Station against protestors the other day. The FIR did not mention the name of any lawmaker. It mentioned that one Jamil along with other protestors resumed power supply to certain areas, causing a loss of Rs1.3 million to the exchequer.

A number of protests were held against power breakdowns across KP in the last few days. The large number of protests and blocking of main highways have created a serious law and order situation for police.

The KP chief minister had given 15 days’ deadline to Pesco last month to improve the situation and otherwise warned of taking control of grid stations.Pesco officials say the loadshedding duration is longer in areas where there are more losses and most of the consumers are not paying bills. They said the situation has resulted in millions of losses to the company.

The protestors in a number of places alleged that the staff of Pesco, supported by their unions and officers, were involved in power theft and action should be taken against them instead of carrying out power breakdowns. They said ordinary consumers have to pay the price in the form of heavy bills as well as face 12 to 21 hours of power shutdown in rural towns.

There are villages on both sides of Kohat Road where power supply was suspended for the last many weeks while thieves have also stolen power cables from the poles as they knew there was no current in these lines.

Every year, a number of offices and grid stations are stormed by the protesters due to long breakdowns, especially in summers when temperature increases.The duration of power breakdowns is increasing every year and in some areas it has reached 21 hours while in some towns there is no power for the last several months now.

To address the issue of power theft, Pesco authorities had set up three police stations to deal with the law and order situation in the past years. However, the police station failed to improve the situation, after which these were closed.