Daily Times

Advisor to Prime Minister Engineer Amir Muqam on Saturday underlined the need for extending relief to power consumers by reducing duration of load shedding.

Chairing a meeting of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) in the Wapda House here, the prime minister’s advisor was of the view those areas where losses were ranging from 90 or 95pc to 100pc should get four hours electricity to keep their routine life on.

“Consumers of high losses areas too have the right to have water in their house for domestic chores and drinking or water in mosque for making Wadu (ablution),” he observed when the Pesco officials were advocating for extending load shedding duration as a remedy to overcome revenue losses.

Amir Muqam maintained that areas, which were registering over 80pc losses, should experience 12 hours load shedding against 16 hours, which was currently in vogue.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Pesco Abdul Jabbar Khan pointed that Pesco officials were facing a number of difficulties on several fronts and consumers of certain feeders in Peshawar resorted to coercive tactics and took control of electricity supplying gadgets to keep the supply on to their area.

He said that such practices could, someday lead to a big mishap either to power breakdown or human losses.

The minister’s advisor said that it was a serious issue and asked them to contact law enforcement officials to provide security and register FIRs against the culprits.

He pointed out certain officials of the Pesco exploited situation in the wake of the setup change at national level by misusing resources including transformers and poles.

He directed the officials concerned to furnish a complete report featuring details about stock available at stores in their areas and the equipment, which were utilized.

“We will investigate the distribution of transformers and poles, we need an exact report of store items, and these practices should stop now,” the prime minister observed.

He also sought a report, which contained physical progress on feeders in order to have clear picture of the whole situation and ensure complete transparency.

He expressed dismay over slow-paced progress on construction of an access road to Shangla grid station, saying if things went at same snail-pace, the facility would become redundant one day.

He directed the officials concerned to pursue the case thoroughly and resolve all relevant issues at the earliest.

He also directed for resolving issues pertaining to 132 KV feeder for Thakot and offered his services for obtaining NOC from WAPDA for line bays. The Wapda officials also briefed about completed and ongoing projects and said concrete efforts were being made to complete ongoing projects within schedule timeframe.