Rural suffering

The Khalas, Misrial and Patwali villages have been facing complete power breakdowns for a couple of days now causing great inconvenience to people in this humid and hot weather. In Margalla Town, however, there was complete power breakdown on the fateful nights of August 6 and 7. This was in addition to the routine loadshedding carried out at odd hours, ie, from 6pm to 8 pm, 11pm to 12am and finally from 3am to 4am. This load management and low voltage have damaged electronic appliances. It appears that Iesco has made a common cause with the importers of UPS from India.
The government is advised to retire circular debt instead of wasting public money on luxury projects such as the metro-bus, signal-free expressway, Orange Train, etc. Islamabad is perhaps the only capital in the world that is even deprived of the basic necessities of life. Links roads of other surrounding villages – including Tamman Road to Markhal village and Misrial Tehsil, Talagang – have been turned into ditches due to non-maintenance/repair since decades. Will the federal and Punjab governments mitigate the suffering of the people of these villages?
Muhammad Akram Malik
Islamabad