Extremely chilled weather coupled with worst ever gas load shedding has made the lives of residents of Lytton and its adjoining areas miserable.
The intermittent downpours hit the city while upper areas received heavy rains in a short span of time. This made the weather extremely cold in Lahore and its peripheries where the mercury is touching almost 5 or 6 Celsius and the unscheduled hours long gas load shedding has added to the miseries of the dwellers.
Though the rainy spell has brought down various kinds of allergies specially viral diseases like cough and cold, the gas outage has exposed the people to multiple sufferings. While the WAPDA is carrying out 2 to 4 hours unannounced electricity load shedding, the Lahorites are also experiencing the worst kind of gas load shedding in majority of the vicinities.
The situation in most of the localities including Mozang Chungi, Lytton Road, Lake Road and Jain Mandir with regard to gas load shedding is worst as they are facing almost no gas situation and the dwellers are even unable to cook meals what to say of using the gas heaters.
Even the areas where there is less gas load shedding the people complain of low pressure specially in the early morning adding to the miseries of school goers particularly children and toddlers who are confronting issues like using chilled water for washing and going to schools and colleges without breakfast.
This situation has resulted in the ailments related to severe cold in the absence of adequate arrangements to fight the chilled weather.
A survey revealed that in the absence of gas and electricity, people are even forced to switch over to use of wood and coal to cook the food and keep them warm. On the other hand the profiteers have also hiked the prices of wood and coal owing to more demand.
The matter of excessive gas load shedding has echoed many a times in the print media and many VIPs have expressed their serious concerns in this regard asking the concerned department to mend its ways but their hue and cry appear to be falling on deaf years.
Now, when as per the forecast of the Met office , the severe cold spell is likely to continue for another week or so, the Sui Gas companies are required to have some mercy on the poor masses and try to provide them relief by cutting down load shedding timings in order to mitigate sufferings of the consumers.
