Pregnant woman dies of dehydration during load-shedding protest

Frustrated citizens burn tyres, block roads across Hyderabad against power utility company

HYDERABAD: In a reflection of how the federal bureaucracy is considering itself unanswerable, as also apprehended by Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbassi, officials of the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) seem to be on a rampage. Widespread outages, protracted response to complaints and unscheduled load-shedding by Hesco, which all intensified with the onset of Ramazan, has forced residents of several localities of Hyderabad to take to the streets.

During a protest that turned tragic in the Shah Najaf Colony area in Latifabad Unit 10, a pregnant woman participating in the demonstration, with mercury recorded at 44˚ Celsius, died of dehydration. Her family and neighbours told the media that 30-year-old Reema, wife of Yameen Malik, fainted at the protest and was declared dead at a hospital.

Reema was a mother of two children and was five months pregnant. Her family and other residents of the area held Hesco responsible for her death. The area has reportedly been without electricity for 21 days after a transformer in the area developed some fault.



Saeeduddin, a local resident, claimed that so far the residents had collected Rs86,000 from the neighbourhood and paid the sum to Hesco staff to repair or replace the transformer. "Now they [Hesco staff] are asking for more money, which we are unable to pay," he said.

Saeeduddin and the other residents alleged that Hesco's lower staff collected bribes to provide illegal connections to some of their neighbours. "This leads to an increase in the transformers' load and they burst due to the load," he argued.

Separately, residents of Amani Shah Colony in Latifabad also staged a protest against power suspension. They burnt tyres and pelted stones on roads blocking the movement of traffic in Latifabad Unit 11 for hours. They were annoyed by the same reason - faulty transformers in their area that had not been repaired for a week.

"People living in our area can't afford generators or UPS. We have to let ourselves, our children and elders burn in the heat. But the trauma doesn't end here as we have also run short of water," claimed Ahsan Ali, a local resident who was among the protesters.



Another demonstration was held at Shahi Bazaar led by union council chairman Asif Beg who also complained about a transformer that caught fire three days before and had not been repaired. The people living in Pucca Qila also took to the streets and burnt tyres to block the traffic movement.



Protests were also held in some other localities in Latifabad, City and Qasimabad talukas. "The transformer of Ali Nagar Colony [a housing society in Qasimabad] often bursts because it's overloaded by illegal connections of people living in the surrounding villages. We repeatedly ask Hesco to remove the illegal connections but they never take action which smacks of connivance on the part of the [Hesco] staff," Mir Asif, a resident, said.

According to him, as soon as the inhabitants of Ali Nagar Colony got their transformers repaired or replaced, illegal connections were hooked up once again. "We can't clash with the residents of surrounding villages. It's Hesco's responsibility to remove kundas but every time we ask them to do so, they avoid it."

The power company is already implementing a load-shedding schedule of up to 12 hours on the basis of the recovery of power bills. Hesco's 488 electricity feeders have been divided in seven categories. Areas covered by feeders with up to 10% line losses have been exempted from load-shedding, while areas whose feeders have 80% line losses have to undergo 12 hours of power cuts. Hesco Spokesperson Sadiq Kubar was not available for comment.