Power outages haunt CSS aspirants

With the CSS exams a matter of days away, the aspirants’ dreams of joining the civil service seems to be on the verge of diminishing even before they appear for the exam, courtesy PEPCO’s unrelenting power outages. Anwar Sheikh, a resident of Wapda Town, is one such student who is rethinking his plan of taking the exams this year. “CSS is the most competitive exam in the country, and one that requires at least 12 to 15 hours of study daily. With the protracted power shortages in the city, it is impossible to study for two consecutive hours, and therefore, since I am clearly under prepared I don’t think I’ll be appearing in the exam this year,” he said. Anwar further went on to say that his fellow aspirants shared the same sentiment and were troubled by the continuous load shedding that they had had to bear.
Lahore faced at least 12-16 hours of load shedding on Saturday leaving the consumers in shock. This time round, consumers are given shocks of continuous unscheduled outages and there have been also protests against prolonged load shedding in the city. Interestingly, no announcement was made by the authority and hence, it came as a shock for the people.
Unlike in the past when the power was curtailed for one hour spells, this time people have been forced to stay without electricity for two and even three hour spells. The power was stopped early in the morning for two hours causing problems for the school going children and people got late from the offices as well.
This was not all, as electricity was closed for more than two hours in the noon. Later on, during the evening, once again the consumers were tortured by two hours of power closure. In many areas, the situation was further aggravated when the outage for more than two hours. Every part of the city including Gulshan Ravi, Samanabad, Township, Wapda Town, Wahdat Road, Iqbal Town, Model Town, Garden Town, Muslim Town, Awan Town, Baghbanpura, Shalimar and Mustafabad witnessed load shedding.
According to Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) officials these outages were made to bridge the gap between the demand and supply, as at present the disparity was around 800MW. The people blocked the road at Lakshmi Chowk and burnt tyres and chanted slogans against long load shedding.