Burning bills: Outages continue amid civil disobedience
Residents of the city complain<br />
load-shedding is a problem which cannot be solved.
PESHAWAR:
As the stand-off between the Centre and the provincial government over Pesco’s ownership continues in the background and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leadership burns power bills centre stage, nothing has changed for the people.
“The vicissitude of politics between the federal and K-P governments over electricity issues is of no use to us; we continue to receive inflated bills and face prolonged outages,” said Wajidullah, a resident of Landi Arbab. He termed this clash a “zero sum game”.
Wajidullah added he always remains under considerable stress towards the last few days of every month fearing an overpriced power bill.
Tariq Saleem, a resident of Badhaber, said prolonged power outages have become a regular feature of his life. “We have lost confidence in the system and see no prospects of any betterment in future.”
When questioned about the Pesco control issue that was once a much discussed topic, an energy official at the Civil Secretariat said there has been no progress on this front between the Centre and the province.
Bone of contention
During the early months of their rule, both K-P and federal governments blamed each other for power mismanagement and made what now seem to have been false promises about ending load-shedding.
CM Pervez Khattak had then written a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the federal minister for water and power. “You would agree with me that the centralized power system has not been able to perform. It is incumbent that all the three sectors, including power generation, distribution and transmission should be given under the control of provincial governments in an all-encompassing package deal,” the letter had read.
Minister for Information Mushtaq Ghani was not available for a comment, despite repeated attempts. However, ANP provincial general secretary and former K-P information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said, “All these steps reflect a non-serious attitude (on part of the PTI leadership).”
“They (PTI) are making the people of the province suffer, instead of taking steps that correspond to ground realties,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2014.
As the stand-off between the Centre and the provincial government over Pesco’s ownership continues in the background and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leadership burns power bills centre stage, nothing has changed for the people.
“The vicissitude of politics between the federal and K-P governments over electricity issues is of no use to us; we continue to receive inflated bills and face prolonged outages,” said Wajidullah, a resident of Landi Arbab. He termed this clash a “zero sum game”.
Wajidullah added he always remains under considerable stress towards the last few days of every month fearing an overpriced power bill.
Tariq Saleem, a resident of Badhaber, said prolonged power outages have become a regular feature of his life. “We have lost confidence in the system and see no prospects of any betterment in future.”
When questioned about the Pesco control issue that was once a much discussed topic, an energy official at the Civil Secretariat said there has been no progress on this front between the Centre and the province.
Bone of contention
During the early months of their rule, both K-P and federal governments blamed each other for power mismanagement and made what now seem to have been false promises about ending load-shedding.
CM Pervez Khattak had then written a letter to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the federal minister for water and power. “You would agree with me that the centralized power system has not been able to perform. It is incumbent that all the three sectors, including power generation, distribution and transmission should be given under the control of provincial governments in an all-encompassing package deal,” the letter had read.
Minister for Information Mushtaq Ghani was not available for a comment, despite repeated attempts. However, ANP provincial general secretary and former K-P information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said, “All these steps reflect a non-serious attitude (on part of the PTI leadership).”
“They (PTI) are making the people of the province suffer, instead of taking steps that correspond to ground realties,” he added.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2014.