Unscheduled, long outages haunt Pindiites

Rawalpindi: Islamabad Electric Supply Company (Iesco) has resumed unscheduled and long duration of power loadshedding in every part of Rawalpindi city and Cantonment areas, creating lots of problems for people amid hot and humid weather.

The practice of power loadshedding by Iesco is aggravating with each passing day which according to people seems to be an attempt to defame the present ruling party and to malign the hearts of hundreds of people against it.

During the reign of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, in order to curtail the timings of the loadshedding, the government had constituted a PM Monitoring Cell and the gravity of power outages had come down immensely making the people to feel some kind of relief from frequent breakdown of electricity. However, since the stepping down of Nawaz Sharif from prime minister’s slot on the orders of the Supreme Court, severity in power breakdowns under the garb of loadshedding has increased particularly over the last four to five days.

People of different areas like Kamalabad, Dhoke Syedan, Ghaziabad Colony, Tench Bhatta, People’s Colony, Allama Iqbal Colony, Dhamial, Tariqabad, Tahli Morri, Dheri Hassanabad, Dhoke Juma, Adiala, Akram Colony, Akram Shaheed Road, Lalazar, Harley Street, Dhoke Khabba, Dhoke Farman Ali, Dhoke Kashmirian, Liaquat Bagh, Chamanzar Colony, Mughalabad, Shamsabad, Satellite Town, Muslim Town, Saidaqbad, Asghar Mall Scheme, Jhanda, Banni, New Katarian, Khayaban-e-Sir Syed etc complained about unscheduled power loadshedding and increase in its hours by another three hours in a day. Prior to this, suspension of power under schedule loadshedding was being done for three to four hours in a day which over the last one week has been increased by another three to four hours which is being carried out in unscheduled manner by the concerned authorities of Iesco.

The people also alleged that the officials as well as employees of the respective sub stations of Iesco do not even bother to attend phone when tried to approach on land line and cell numbers to lodge complaints about power outages. The rise in loadshedding hours negates the claims of the government that work on power projects are being carried out to end this problem completely by the end of the current year as ensured by the top leaderships of the ruling party.

If work on power projects is underway, then the duration and hours of power loadshedding needs to be curtailed every year instead of increasing it timings but no difference is being witnessed in this regard, the people claimed.

They were of the view that despite being deprived of electricity facility for hours in a day , the people are forced to pay huge bills also comprising fuel charges, surcharges and taxes.

The people have demanded off the new Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Punjab Chief Minister, concerned minister of Wapda, its chairman and other higher officials to take serious notice of the matter and take practical and effective measures to curtail hours of power outages and to end practice of unscheduled load shedding. They also appealed to the Supreme Court to take suo motto notice against concerned officials of the respective sub stations who are making the people to suffer badly through unscheduled power outages over the last one week. The higher officials like engineers and concerned SDOs be brought to book, they appealed to Supreme Court.

When asked,Iesco Chief Executive Officer Raja Asghar agreed about frequent power breakdowns being done in unscheduled manner in Rawalpindi. Giving reasons behind electricity failures for long hours over the last one week, he said that problem had occurred in main supply line in Sangjani which occurred due to overload.

Due to hot and humid weather, people utilise electrical appliance like air conditioners and room coolers to beat the heat as a result of which load on power lines exceeds which created a fault in main supply line of 220 KV which links from Sangjani to City and Cantonment areas. Now work on rectifying fault in main line has been completed because of which the problem of power outages in unscheduled way would end and the electricity would be supplied smoothly in city and cantonment areas, the CEO assured.