Protesters warn Wapda to end outages

CHITRAL, July 28: Residents of Chitral town took to the streets on Saturday against prolonged electricity outages and warned the power utility to resolve the issue within a week otherwise a fully-fledged protest move would be launched. The protest was organized by the town power committee under the head of Khan Hayatulla Khan. Speakers on the occasion said there was not a single power theft case in Chitral and people of the entire district paid their monthly utility bills regularly and chairman Wapda also had assured the consumers that there would be no loadshedding in areas where there was no power theft. But even then, there is 14-hour-long loadshedding in Chitral. They said the chairman Wapda had also promised to upgrade the local hydro power house but so far no steps had been taken in this regard too. They criticized the DCO and other district administration officials for their failure in ending loadshedding. They alleged that the district police were patronizing and supporting drug traffickers and narcotics sellers in Chitral, as a result the youth were becoming drug addicts. The protesters also criticized provincial minister Saleem Khan for his failure in getting a no-objection certificate (NOC) from the chief minister for construction of a four-megawatt hydropower house by a private firm in Chitral to resolve the energy issue. They also passed a unanimous resolution demanding posting out of the district coordination officer. They said the district police officer should also be transferred from Chitral because he was not taking action against drug traffickers. Through another resolution, they demanded inter-linking of Drosh, Reshun, Singor power houses and diesel generators for the area.—G.H. Farooqui]]>