Prolonged loadshedding amid sweltering heat adds to citizens’ woes

PESHAWAR:

The intense heatwave in the plains of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, coupled with prolonged loadshedding, have added to the woes of people across the province.

According to PESCO officials, the electricity requirement is 1,900 megawatts as against the supply of 1,600 megawatts, thus a shortfall of 300 megawatts is forcing the power utility to resort to loadshedding.

The rural areas are bearing the brunt of shortfall of power supply with 12 to 20 hours of loadshedding while the urban areas are facing 8 to 10 hours of power cuts.

The hours long power blackouts have triggered a series of protests across the province with people forced to come on the roads, demanding smooth power supply.

According to PESCO officials, the utility is forced to carry out loadshedding to save the power system. They also appealed to the public to conserve electricity by maintaining the bare minimum use of electricity.

By the same token, due to unannounced load-shedding, ice factories are unable to operate to their full capacity thereby creating a shortage of ice on the local market. This has increased difficulties of the general public manifold.