People have risen up in arms against unscheduled and excessive duration of loadshedding as the electricity shortfall crossed 7000 MW on Wednesday.
There were protests in Sialkot, Gujranwala, Wazirabad, Jhelum, Chakwal, Bhalwal and other cities of Punjab on Wednesday as people have been forced to bear the long hours of loadshedding. Citizens said that more than 18 hours of load shedding was being enforced in cities and between 20 to 22 hours in rural areas thus making their lives miserable.
The protestors said that electricity is supplied for a few minutes after two to three hours of breakdown and then again the supply is cut. As a result not only they are forced to suffer in rising temperature but water supply has been adversely affected for the consumers. Businessmen said they too are suffering extensively because of non supply of electricity while domestic consumers have spoken of damage to their appliances.
Protestors in cities burnt tyres, raised slogans against PEPCO and government over the worsening supply situation and pointed that the promises made by the PPP government to overcome the crisis have not been fulfilled. They said in fact the situation has gone from bad to worse and with circular debt reaching Rs 232 billion and threat by the IPPs to stop generation, it is feared that business, industrial and other activities would come to a standstill.
They questioned where the revenue generated from power consumption was going as the government is increasing the tariff every month. They said the circular debt was on the increase because of corruption in PEPCO and theft of electricity in Sindh, Balochistan and FATA. They said people in Punjab were paying their bills regularly and there is minimum theft of electricity but they were being victimized by the PPP led government. They warned that if the government failed to over come the electricity crisis, they would be forced to stop payment of bills and would march to Islamabad.
PEPCO officials said that if the circular debt was clear, the situation could improve.
On the other hand the water level at Tarbela has reached the dead level and there is no possibility of any increase in hydel power generation.