Irked by power cuts, PTI activists barge into Wapda House in Peshawar

Led by PTI MPA Ayesha Gulalai, protesters demand end to power outages in K-P

PESHAWAR: Hundreds of enraged Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) activists broke down the gate of the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) House in Peshawar on Wednesday and stormed inside during their protest against persistent power outages in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P).

The PTI protesters chanted slogans against the federal government, holding it responsible for the power crisis.

Led by Member Provincial Assembly (MPA) Ayesha Gulalai, the protesters demanded that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz-led (PML-N) federal government and Wapda officials should stop the hours-long spells of power outages in the province and fulfil their promise of a load-shedding-free Pakistan.



Other PTI MPAs including Yasin Khalil, Arif Yousaf, Arif Jahandad and Peshawar Nazim Muhammad Asim also participated in the rally.

The protesters set up a camp inside the Wapda House and vowed to remain there until the government met their demands.

“All Wapda officials are using free electricity while the poor consumers are putting up with over-billing,” said Gulalai.

She added that the province was facing prolonged hours of load-shedding which would not be tolerated anymore.



Shaukat Afzal, the spokesperson for the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco), said most of the protesters were from areas where customers used illegal hook connections (kundas) for electricity and did not pay their bills.

“The kunda culture makes up around 70 per cent of Pesco's loss," Afzal told The Express Tribune.

MPA Gulalai, while addressing the protesters, said only the poor in the country were paying hefty amounts of money in electricity bills and in return, they were facing long hours of power cuts.

She warned that if the Centre did not sort out the issue of load-shedding and over-billing, they would extend their protest to other parts of the country.