The citizens of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) on Thursday come out on streets as prolonged and unannounced electricity outage extended to 18 hours in the province. Over 18 hours of power shutdown is being observed in the urban and rural areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as electricity shortfall has reached 1500 megawatts (MW) in the province.
The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Tuesday had asked the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO) to set a uniform schedule for power shutdown in both urban and rural areas of the province and warned that no discrimination would be tolerated in this regard. But, despite PCH directives, there is an eight to 12 hours of protracted power outage in cities compared to 10 to 14 hours in villages.
The rural areas, despite unannounced power cut, are facing low voltage of around 50 to 70 volts. An official source in PESCO told Pakistan Today that the worst-hit areas in the provincial capital included the university area and the industrial estate grid on Kohat Road. He said that the duration of power outages could be doubled in the next few days if the government did not overcome factors leading to the power shortfall.
Earlier, the PESCO had announced a load shedding schedule of six to eight hours in the urban areas and eight to 10 hours in the rural areas but neither the schedule nor the PHC directives are being followed in the province.
