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Perennial power ‘load management’ lingers on
Situationer
Tariq Saeed
The inhabitants of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier
Province are taking maximum brunt of ensuring smooth power supply to
rest of the country but in return are condemned to have worst power
outage of the history.
More than 70 percent of the Peshawarites are experiencing the
inhuman sixteen to eighteen hours power outage in the name of load
management for the last few days which has literally brought the
life to standstill and this situation is feared to continue for more
several days, thanks to Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA)
which appears to have no capability to overcome the crisis.
In fact it was the blowing up of 500 KV Sheikh Mohammadi grid
station by some miscreants in the outskirts of Peshawar on the night
between Sunday and Monday which added to the miseries of residents
of provincial metropolis already suffering 6 to 8 hours loadshedding.
While supply to some eighty feeders of seventeen grid stations in
Peshawar were badly effected and more then 70 percent area of the
city including the cantonment, main city, university road, Kohat
road, Industrial estate, posh locality Hayatabad and adjoining areas
plunged into utter darkness, WAPDA has no way to overcome the issue
effectively and on emergency basis.
The Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) was left with only
option to ensure supply of only eight hours as per the formula of
one hour supply after every two hours load shedding, with the
so-called load management jumping to even more on Tuesday when
majority of the city dwellers spent night without electricity with
mercury already shooting high.
While almost four days have gone, the blown up tower of the Sheikh
Mohammadi grid station ensuring power supply to almost all the city,
could not be repaired. Initially the PESCO authorities came up with
the excuse that they were finding it hard to carry out necessary
repair of the Tower owing to the security reasons. On Tuesday they
issued a press release saying that the new Tower may reach Peshawar
from Faisalabad in a couple of days calling upon the consumers to
extend cooperation to the electric supply company in this regard.
However, nobody knows how long the installation or erection of that
tower may take. Hence the ordeal of the poor Peshawarites is not
over as yet.
As the people are leading sleepless nights, the business activities
have almost come to a standstill with number of fuel stations
affected badly. The hard-hit are the students. The school going kids
are finding it hard to leave for their respective institutions after
spending sleepless nights, the candidates appearing in the
intermediate exams in progress these days are worried about their
future as they are confronting great uncertainty with regard to
their papers they have to go for every morning.
On the other hand the miseries of residents in number of areas have
gone double as the power outage has also led to worst kind of water
shortage and people in many localities were finding it hard to get a
few liters of potable water.
One wonders if this is the state of affairs in the provincial
capital of a developing country in the 21st century, what would be
the situation in other cities and smaller towns.
The WAPDA ‘authorities’ should look into the matter seriously and
come up with sincere and effective measures for a permanent solution
to the power crisis which is not only badly affecting the country’s
economy but also earning great public resentment for people in
corridors of power.
At the same time the Power Company is also supposed to work for new
means, resources and alternative sources of power generation
Like small dams and solar energy which is abundant in all areas of
the country including NWFP.
The new government is also expected to find out a lasting solution
to the prevalent energy crisis instead of resorting to blame game
that it inherited number of problems from the previous regime. It
must also take the nation into confidence and do whatever is
necessary in this regard.
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