By Zahiruddin
CHTIRAL: More than 45 thousand consumers of electricity in Chitral district had to undergo mental agony as they suffered power outage of more than 48 hours continuously without being informed by Peshawar Electric Supply Company (PESCO), the power distribution company.
The consumers decried the outage of electricity without prior information and said that had they been informed in advance, they would have arranged alternative sources of power supply in the form of UPS system, solar system and petrol oil generators which they given early in the year when the Golen Gol Hydro power station was inaugurated ensuring incessant power supply.
Hundreds of the shop keepers in Chitral city and upper Chitral valley suffered a loss of millions of rupees as a whole as the refrigerated articles including ice-cream, dairy products, frozen chicken and mutton were defrozened and rendered useless on being heated.
Bashir Hussain Azad, a trader’s leader complained that the loss could have been averted by them by prior information by using alternative means of power supply but they kept in darkness by PESCO and each moment they were told on inquiry that the power supply will be restored any moment.
The reason for the outage is said to be the shut down of Golen Gol hydro power station for desiltation of its power channel which had been filled by sand due to the recent glacial lake outburst flood which was flushed through the stream feeding the power station.
The project director of Golen Gol Hydro power project, Engineer Javed Afridi said that it had become inevitable to closed down the power station for flushing the large amount of sand accumulated in the power channel and forebay tank that could have damaged the turbine.
The electricity supply had not been restored till the filing of this news story.
Niaz A Niazi advocate, a human rights activist, said that it was a breach of human rights on the part of PESCO to discontinue the power supply for two days without informing its consumers for which he will sue them in the court of law.
The sub-divisional officer of PESCO Chitral or any other official were not available to know about their version.
