Infuriated citizens take to the streets across the province

Power outages will continue with varying magnitude till mid-June, says Hesco official

HYDERABAD: As the power outages worsen coinciding with the intensifying summer heat, people in many districts are taking to the streets to vent their outrage. The enraged people burnt tyres, blocked inter-district roads and staged sit-in demonstrations in Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Tharparkar, Badin, Sanghar, Dadu and other districts on Tuesday and Wednesday.

At least three offices of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco), which provides electricity to 13 districts of Sindh, were also partially ransacked in different districts. Hesco claims that it is maintaining four-hour load-shedding in urban parts of Sindh and six-hours in the rural areas. The national grid is supplying 850 megawatts (MW) of electricity to the company against its demand of 1,056MW, around 20% less than the required amount.

A shutter-down strike was observed on Wednesday in Nawabshah where citizens and traders also held a protest rally. "Hesco has made our lives miserable," exclaimed Aslam Noori of Nawabshah's Citizens Action Committee while speaking at the protest. He claimed that 14 to 20 hours of unannounced load-shedding is being carried out in Nawabshah. The protesters complained that a severe water shortage has also hit the city owing to the outages.



In Sehwan, the protesting people pitched tents on the road and blocked the Indus Highway for around six hours, decrying 12 to 16 hours outages.

The enraged people burnt tyres, blocked inter-district roads and staged sit-in demonstrations. PHOTO:ONLINE

A sub-divisional officer of Hesco, Gul Bahar Oad, was allegedly manhandled by some lawyers when the officer was returning from a court hearing. In reaction, Hesco staff also reached the court but the local police prevented any conflict.

"Hesco cites dozens of reasons to justify outages. But we feel convinced that they are intentionally tormenting the people for some political purpose," contended Moula Bux Noohani who was among those who led the protest.



 

MQM-Pakistan meets Hesco CEO

A delegation of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) - Pakistan, led by its Hyderabad organiser MPA Rashid Khilji and Hyderabad Municipal Corporation's Mayor Syed Tayyab Hussain, met Hesco Chief Executive Officer Asadullah Khan on Tuesday.

"The unscheduled and protracted outages during Ramazan amount to criminal negligence," said Khilji. The delegation, which comprised all MQM-Pakistan's elected MPAs from Hyderabad, also cautioned the company that the people's patience is wearing thin.

The company's spokesperson, Sadiq Kubar, said the demand of electricity has suddenly increased in Ramazan, which coincided with a rise in temperature in the province. According to him, the problem of load management has intensified because 16 towers of the National Transmission and Dispatch Company's (NTDC) 500KV line, which collapsed on May 21, have still not been restored.



"The NTDC earlier said that they will resume supply from that line by May 30. But, now they are saying that it will take a few more days," Kubar said. An official source in Hesco told The Express Tribune that the power supply from the damaged 500KV line is likely to be restored by mid-June. "Till then the outages will continue with varying magnitude."