Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Angry protesters blocked several roads and disrupted daily businesses against the hours-long electricity load-shedding in different parts of Peshawar on Wednesday.

Some violent protesters took to the Indus Highway connecting the provincial city Peshawar with Kohat and other southern districts of the province, and blocked it for all kinds of traffic soon after Sehri as they shouted against the Water And Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and the provincial government. The busy road remained inaccessible to commuters for six hours — between 5 am and 11 am.

The protesters placed blockages and burnt tyres along with other hurdles on the road to disrupt the flow of traffic. The disruption also meant blockage of travelling between Peshawar, Karachi and Balochistan province.

Similarly, a large number of people outraged by the 18 hours of load-shedding jammed Charsadda Road that connects Peshawar with Charsadda district and the Mohmand tribal agency as well.

The road is also used by many as a shortcut between Peshawar and Malakand division. Hundreds of people, most of them fasting were taking part in the protest in the scorching heat.

In a different set of protest against the same power issue, people blocked the Bara Road right at the junction of Peshawar cantonment at the Bara Gate area. Long queues of all sorts of vehicles going to the Cantonment and Hayatabad and Bara stood still on a narrow road.

Police and local administration tried to negotiate with the protesters, who called off their demonstrations after assurances from the administration after long discussions.

However the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) termed the protests as baseless because the power outing was in line with the schedule for Ramadan.

“The leaders of the protesters, including ex-deputy speaker Khushdil Khan and MPA Arbab Jahandad Khan met the PESCO Chief Executive today and put their complaints about the schedule. They demanded the restoration of the previous schedule that was in place before Ramadan,” PESCO spokesman Shaukat Afzal told the Daily Times.

According to Shaukat Afzal, the high-loss feeders in Peshawar were facing 12 to 18 hours load-shedding before the start of Ramadan whereas power shortage for the low-loss feeders is zero to three hours because of full recovery.

“The high-loss feeders include those where 70 per cent to 100 per cent losses are experienced by the PESCO.The main reason for the losses is the countless illegal connections that people use to steal electricity. Power feeders with less than 30 per cent losses fall in the low-loss category,” he explained.

Shaukat Afzal added that the areas where protests took place fall under the high-loss points. “To provide relief to the residents of such areas, PESCO started providing them uninterrupted power between 7 pm and 10:30 pm for Iftar and Taraveeh prayers. Similarly there were no power cuts between 1 am to 3:30 am for Sehri,” the spokesman detailed.

However, the locals did not agree with the load-shedding after the specified timings and took to the streets in protest. They lamented that the hot summer days without electricity were unbearable and people were finding it difficult to survive in Ramadan.

Load-shedding is not a new issue in the country. Last year, the same issue had resulted in violent protests in Peshawar and other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as well as a number of cities in Punjab. People had attacked and torched at least one grid station and many protesters were wounded in clashes with the police.