Thursday, March 19, 2009

Villagers protest ‘undue’ loadshedding





PESHAWAR: People from five suburban villages of the provincial capital Thursday staged a protest demonstration against what they termed step-motherly attitude of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) towards their areas and demanded immediate end to ‘undue’ loadshedding.

Coming from Mashokhel, Balarzai, Mushtarzai, Mera and Shaikhan villages, the people alleged that there was an unannounced 24-hour loadshedding in the areas, which was unjustified and unacceptable.

The people first staged a protest demonstration at the Peshawar Press Club where they chanted slogans against Pesco and then addressed a press conference to let the media know about their grievances.

Speaking on the occasion, sitting and former elected representatives Zar Khan, Samin Jan, Jamshed Khan and others from the five villages said the present power outages were unjustified. They said sometimes the power disruptions extended to 24 hours, bitterly disturbing the routine life in the areas.

The villagers said the people of the five villages had been subjected to the practice for the past four years and no remedy was in sight despite several complaints lodged with the concerned authorities.

“It seems as if we are not the inhabitants of this land,” said Samin Jan, former nazim of the Shaikhan union council, while referring to what they called long hours loadshedding in the area.

To a question, the villagers said they were regularly paying electricity bills, but not getting the required service. “Those among us who did not pay the power dues were doing so just because of the undue loadshedding,” they added. They said they had approached their respective members of the provincial and national assemblies, but to no avail. The villagers said the standing crops in the area had been damaged due to water shortage because of loadshedding.

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