Upper Chitral protesters set deadline
BOONI: Despite biting cold weather, people of upper Chitral held a huge protest gathering in Booni today against the unending power crisis in their area even after the commissioning of the Golen Gol hydro power station.
The participants of the public meeting organized under the aegis of Tehreek-Haqooq Awam gave the government Feb 12 deadline to ensure supply of electricity to the area otherwise a protest rally would be taken towards Golen Gol for a sit-in outside the powerhouse.
Representatives from all parts of upper Chitral such as Yarkhun, Laspur, Torkhow, Mulkhow and Booni spoke on the occasion and criticized the government for its discriminatory attitude towards the people of upper Chitral.
They said despite availability of surplus power at Golen Gol, upper Chitral was not being provided electricity by different excuses.
The speakers said WAPDA and PEDO officials were hands in glove in depriving the consumers of upper Chitral of their right to the indigenous power. The two departments had never been serious from day one to resolve the power crisis in upper Chitral.
They neither arranged a transformer nor improved the already laid transmission lines to upper Chitral.
Buck up! Prepare a workable demand/plan and get it approved from the Minister Energy and Power through the MNA. Mere asking him will not work because with the capacity of electric power commissioned from Golen and evacuated to Chitral strongly demands a fully fledged division at Chitral with two subdivisions at Drosh and Booni.
Similarly, there is no need of any XEN sitting in Timargara and getting the computerized bills of Chitrali consumers done from there as against the accepted norms of Chitral being the provider of electricity to the whole of Malakand division. He must be shifted to Chitral with a, if not hundreds in tens transformers with a well equipped workshop. At present transformers are kept in Chakdara and Chitral has not a single and people are rushed to Chakdara for a transformer on their own expenses. Therefore, all such issues related to the regular evacuation of electricity to Chitral must be kept in the demand. In response to the demonstration on electricity supply at Booni.