Grid station blaze: Outage continues in Mohmand, Shabqadar for third day

SHABQADAR: Residents of Mohmand Agency and Charsadda’s Shabqadar area spent a third day without electricity on Thursday after the control room of the main 132 KV grid station burnt down 72 hours earlier. Their miseries have been compounded by the sudden suspension of gas supply by the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines (SNGP) to the areas.

Since then, most parts of Mohmand and Shabqadar have gone without electricity.

Though Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) officials claimed earlier that electricity would be restored to the areas within the next 24 hours, the breakdown has lasted for more than 72 hours.

“We are busy in work and will try to resume power supply till Friday in both Mohmand Agency and Shabqadar,” a Pesco official, Nazir Khan, who was working to restart Shabqadar grid station, told The Express Tribune. He said partial power supply was resumed for an hour in some parts but most of the areas were still without electricity as the work on the lines was under way.

In a statement issued to media, Qaumi Watan Party (QWP) chief Aftab Sherpao demanded an inquiry into the incident that led to this outage.

Due to this long breakdown, people in Mohmand and Shabqadar are passing through hardship as water supply has also stopped in most parts of these areas due to lack of electricity.

Local residents say they are forced to drink water from ponds in many areas. Due to water shortage, women have to fetch water from reservoirs in cold weather. They have threatened to launch a protest against the federal government if the supply of electricity and gas is not resumed by Friday (today).

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2016.