Power outages multiply sufferings of people in Islamabad, Rawalpindi
Pakistan Times Federal Bureau Report

ISLAMABAD: Large areas of the twin cities and adjoining areas have been experiencing major power disruptions for the past few days, multiplying problems of the people, who already are sick of days of sweltering heat.

It was however the nature that came to the rescue of the millions earlier this week, who were suffering the sweltering heat and not the IESCO which blamed the outages to the increased load due to high temperatures and shortage of water in Mangla and Tarbela dams.

Frequent Breakdowns

Frequent power breakdowns over the past few days have caused losses in millions to the businesses, multiplying problems of the patients in hospitals and lead to accidents on the main roads due to failed traffic signals.

IESCO's stand

A spokesman of the IESCO said "due to high humidity, increased temperatures and excessive load on the system the National Power Control Centre (NPCC) has directed one hour load-shedding to protect the entire network from any major disruption."

Unfair Load Management

However the people complained that the one-hour long load shedding, which the Wapda now prefers to describe as load management is being done unfairly.

The people in certain posh areas of Islamabad were barely aware of the situation in the remaining parts of the twin cities, who had to bear the one-hour load shedding repeatedly.

"Bear" with "Patience"

The IESCO spokesman reacting to the public reaction to the electricity outages regretted it and advised the people to "bear this problem with patience."

He said the IESCO local staff is helpless as it has no control over the switching of power and appealed to be more understanding of the situation.

People Rject Plea, Hold IESCO responsible

The people however reject IESCO's plea saying that the company should have known before hand of the increasing demand of electricity and made adequate arrangements to meet it.

"How can such a big professional company claim that the load has suddenly increased and they have no control over it," said Professor Azra Mehmood.

Serious Problems

The frequent power outages have created serious problems, particularly for the private hospitals and caused hindrance in providing emergency treatment to patients.

The business community has claimed that the intermittent power shortage has created serious problems for those who had stored frozen food and ice creams causing heavy losses.

The IESCO spokesman has however hoped in a very 'typical' way, that the situation would ease off in a few days.●