The prolonged loadshedding has badly affecting business activities in the provincial metropolis as commercial and domestic consumers are continuously experiencing 18 to 20 hours unannounced power outages. The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province is suffering from 18 to 20 hours long unannounced scheduled for last several weeks amid growing power shortfall hovering 1,300 mega watt.
The province total electricity demand is around 2,349 mega watts, while the shortfall has jumped at 1,300 mega watts despite producing cheapest electricity through hydel generation. The prolonged and unscheduled electricity loadshedding continued to irk the domestic consumers as well. The consumers of Peshawar city, Rashidabad, Dilazak Road and Gulbahar areas have to face eight to 10 hours loadshedding daily, while rural areas have to witness upto 15 hours loadshedding. The citizens have expressed grave concerns over the prolonged suspension of power supply against announced schedule of four hours daily. They were of the view that sudden breakdown besides affecting the routine activities has also resulted in damages to electrical appliances. Commercial activities were also adversely affected due to power crisis.
The Pesco official added that the national grid was providing 16 percent of the total available power to KP, but still parts of the province were facing 20-hour outages due to the system constraints posed by the destruction of Sheikh Muhammadi grid. About the losses that were also one of the reasons of shortfall, he said those were about 33 percent that would shoot up in impending summer season in the province.
The business and industrial activities have been adversely affected amid 18 to 20 hours long unannounced power outages in the province, demanding of the government to take immediate steps to end this unprecedented electricity load shedding, said Dr Yousuf Mohammad Sarwar, President Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI).
The shortfall had forced the power supply company to resort to an average 20-hour loadshedding in parts of the province, said the officials of Peshawar Electricity Supply Company. However, he attributed the hours-long power outages in KP to the destruction of 500 KV Sheikh Muhammadi gridstation in a terrorist attack last week.
Pesco Chief Engineer Lateef Khan said the facility was the main power dispersal grid linking around 13 other grids in parts of the province including grids in Kohat, Hangu, Matani, Haji Camp City grid, Hazarkhwani-Rahman Baba bypass grid and university town, Danishabad grid. "Its devastation rendered us incapable to supply power to the consumers even if we (Pesco) are provided the required quota," Lateef Khan said.
SCCI chief said the unannounced loadshedding was continued for last several weeks in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as compared to rest parts of the country. It was totally unjustified with the people of the province. While, he said after the miscreants attacked on 500-KV Sheikh Mohammadi power grid station, the load shedding has further increased in the KP.
He asked the government to take effective step for overcoming with the electricity crisis in the country. He also demanded of the Peshawar Electricity Supply Company to make operational the damaged power grid station within a month instead of three months.
SCCI president further asked the government to take extraordinary steps for provision of security at the power grid station to prevent such miscreant attacks in future. He viewed that the industrial consumers had paid 99 percent electricity bills despite that the industries were facing hours' long unscheduled power outages.
Haji Haleem Jan, Central President All Traders' Alliance said unprecedented electricity loadshedding had badly affecting the business activities in the provincial capital. He asked the government to take steps for immediate stoppage of prolonged power outages.
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