PESCO does not share schedule; routine activities impeded

Khanpur district councillor Malik Ghulam Mustafa says Pesco had been carrying out unscheduled load-shedding

HARIPUR: The councillors from village councils of Khanpur protested on Tuesday against frequent outages in their area. They warned of blocking Haripur-Taxila Road if Pesco does not stop load-shedding.

Speaking outside the office of Khanpur subdivision operations assistant manager, Khanpur district councillor Malik Ghulam Mustafa said Pesco had been carrying out unscheduled load-shedding which last eight to 12 hours daily. The outages have been experienced in areas on Suraj Galim, Khanpur New and Khanpur Old feeders over the last few days, making routine life difficult for locals.

Mustafa added despite repeated requests, Pesco officials have not even shared the timings when outages would occur or if power was switched off for maintenance.

Also present on the occasion, tehsil councillor Malik Hukum Daad said residents of Khanpur did not default on their bills and were not involved in electricity theft, leaving no justification for Pesco officials to treat them in this manner.

Daad added routine activities and businesses were being affected.

He accused the staff of Khanpur subdivision operations of creating problems and demanded that they be transferred from the village. Daad warned if outages continue, locals would take to the streets again and block Haripur-Taxila Road and Pesco would be responsible for the consequences.

At the protest, village councillors and locals were also in attendance.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 27^th, 2016.