Violent demonstrations against massive electricity blackouts remained in full swing across Punjab on Wednesday as well, reports said.
Reportedly the most affected cities remain Lahore, Sargodha, and Faisalabad.
In Sargodha, demonstrators resorted to vandalism as well as arson as they threw the merchandise out of a number of shops and set it on fire.
In Lahore, protesters in Township area protested against fuel price adjustment (FPA) charges in electricity bills and refused to pay the bills.
They requested officials at a LESCO Customer Service Centre for redressing their problem, but were denied by the officials. It infuriated the protesters and made them attack the office. The demonstrators turned the office upside down, breaking the furniture down to pieces.
Also, traders in various areas of the city protested against load shedding.
On The Mall, the traders protested against unscheduled load shedding. Similarly in Mughalpura, Mustafabad, Wahdat Road and other areas, people came on the roads against the massive outages.
The load shedding remained high in all parts of the city despite tall claims by PEPCO. A LESCO spokesman said there would be no relief for the consumers in the head of FPA for the month of August 2011 and they would have to pay the bills at every cost. However, in the next bills there would be no such charges until the government decides the issue.
In Faisalabad, daily-wagers flooded the streets against unscheduled load shedding despite an assurance by the Faisalabad Electric Supply Company (FESCO) of cutting the outages down. Protesters also poured onto Samundari Road, Sudhar Bypass, Nerdwala Road and Sargodha Road to give their anger the needed vent against sweeping power load shedding.
Meanwhile, 10 independent power producers (IPPs) warned of shutting down the plants if the government failed to pay their arrears, an amount close to Rs 320 billion, by April 19.
“IPPs have decreased power generation to about 50 percent after their dues have crossed all time high,” official sources said.
The IPPs that have issued a notice to the government include Nishat Chunian, Nishat Power, Liberty, Atlas, Hall-more, Safe, Saffire, Orient, Ravish and Saba Power companies.