Praying for power: Enraged Budni residents besiege PESCO headquarters

Say they are being subjected to 22 hours of power outages

PESHAWAR: Scores of angry Gulozai residents from Budni union council gathered outside the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) head office on Monday to protest against prolonged power outages.

They came in vans from different parts of the northeastern union council of Peshawar to draw the power utility’s attention to their suffering. Locals of the area claimed they were being forced to endure up to 22 hours of outages a day.

After its sit-in outside the Parliament House on May 12, the provincial government brought back vows from the Centre of decreased load-shedding. However, the protests indicate that the federal government’s promises were nothing more than words.

“We have been subjected to 22 hours of load shedding and Pesco officials are accusing us of electricity theft,” said Arshad Karim, one of the protesters who negotiated with Pesco management during the protest.

The demonstrators burnt tyres outside the Pesco office gate and closed the road for traffic. They also attacked a vehicle intent on getting inside Pesco offices, however, it remained undamaged.

“Our children are screaming because of the mosquitoes and hot weather, while taps are dry, making it difficult to even offer prayers,” added Ghazanfar Ali Shah, another protester.

“If you ask Pesco, it claims to be running according to a formula provided by Lahore under which areas with higher losses are subjected to maximum hours of load shedding,” he said. “We do not accept this self-manufactured formula which subjects poor people to most of the suffering.”

He urged Pesco to clear problems with defaulting consumers and stop punishing those who pay regularly.

Ghazanfar and Arshad, who negotiated with the Pesco management, were told they would be given six hours of electricity a day if they ended their protest. However, the demonstrators refused the offer and preferred to stay on the streets and block the Pesco gates.

“We have brought our paid bills which show that we have fulfilled our responsibility and it is corrupt Pesco employees who patronise and provide cover for the thieves. The Minister for Water and Power Abid Sher Ali should reform his own staff instead of calling us thieves,” said 70-year-old Mohammad Salim.

He was enraged at the federal government for subjecting K-P to extreme power outages despite the fact that it generates electricity.

Power supply disconnected

Pesco has warned defaulters to deposit their arrears otherwise their power supply would be disconnected without further notice, while strict legal action would also be taken. Pesco is running a “disconnection and recovery campaign” throughout the province under which teams disconnected power supply from 16 distribution transformers in the areas of Deh Bahadar, Mattani and Badhaber due to non-payment.

A press release issue by the Pesco media wing on Monday stated that recovery teams in Mardan disconnected 12 education department connections, nine tehsil municipal administration connections and one connection to the K-P Mardan House.

According to Pesco, 126 feeders of K-P bring minimum losses and load-shedding has been ended in those areas, while more than 132 feeders are causing losses of 80% and recovery is less than 10%.

These 132 feeders include 54 of the Bannu Circle, 43 of the Peshawar Circle, 27 of the Khyber Circle, six of the Hazara Circle and one each from the Mardan and Swat circles.

A proposal to increase load-shedding or permanently disconnect power supply in these high loss areas is also under consideration.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2015.