The citizens of Rawalpindi and Islamabad have been spending their almost half day without electricity.
“We were facing over 10-hour daily unannounced outage, besides scheduled five-hour loadshedding daily for the last one week,” said citizens of twin cities.
They said that they were facing a lot of problems as it had become a routine that the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) conducted unscheduled load shedding on daily basis. The duration of load shedding had been enhanced without prior notice.”
They said employees working with public and private organisations could not reach their offices timely due to load shedding in the morning time.
They also complained that the load shedding was also causing severe water shortage in twin cities..
A resident, Amjad Ali, said that 15-hour load shedding had increased the sufferings of people of Sector I-10/1.
The electricity is switched off during morning prayers from 03am to 04am and again for one hour from 06am to 07am besides consecutive three hours from 09am to 12am and 01pm to 04pm. This is in addition to five-hour scheduled outages, he added.
Usman Malik, another resident of Sector I-10/1, said no immediate relief measures were being taken to redress this issue.
“My family spent several sleepless nights owing to the power
Load shedding,” he added.
He said it was unfortunate that IESCO was doing unscheduled load shedding during the high risk season of malaria and dengue virus.
When contacted, an official at IESCO Complaint Centre admitted that there was a regular unscheduled load shedding being observed in Sector I-10/1. “We receive complaints of citizens but could not do anything as unscheduled load shedding is being observed from grid station.”
Officials at the Grid Station said people at the powerhouse were responsible as they cut electricity at any time due to which there was unscheduled load shedding.
Separately, the Metrological Department forecast that severe heat wave conditions would continue to prevail in most parts of the country during two to three days.
The Met Office said that southern and central Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan would remain in the grip of heat until today (Friday).
Rain is expected on Saturday and Sunday in Islamabad, upper Punjab and northern areas.
In Kashmir, dry weather is expected in most parts of the region. However, in Gilgit-Baltistan there are chances of dust-thunderstorm coupled with light rain at isolated places during next 24 hours.
