SWABI: PTI local leaders, including nazims, along with supporters protested outside the first entry gate of the Tarbela Dam here on Monday against excessive loadshedding in the district.

Speaking on the occasion, the PTI leaders held the federal government responsible for the massive loadshedding in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to defame the PTI government.

They said the excessive outages continued unabated despite the claim of the ruling PML-N that the laying of 126kv transmission line from Tarbela grid station to the district would end the unscheduled outages in the district.

Mohammad Younas, Topi Tehsil Naib Nazim, along with his protesters gathered in the Topi Bazaar and then marched to the Tarbela Dam’s first entrance gate.

On the occasion, Mr Younas said people of Swabi had rendered sacrifices for construction of Tarbela and Ghazi Barotha dams, but they were made to suffer prolonged power suspensions in the sizzling weather. He demanded an end to excessive loadshedding in Ramazan.

After the Wapda and police officials assured the protesters that there would no unscheduled loadshedding, they dispersed.

Similarly, protesters led by Chota Lahor Tehsil Nazim Sohail blocked the Swabi-Jehangira road for about four hours against inflated electricity bills.

The protesters refused to hold talks with police officials, saying they would only hold negotiations with Wapda officials.

A heavy contingent of police was deployed to protect the Pesco Tordher office from mob attack.

The blockade of the busy road caused hardships to commuters.

Later, Pesco’s executive engineer for Swabi-2 subdivision held talks with Mr Sohail and other leaders assuring that the inflated billing would be corrected and there would no prolonged and unscheduled loadshedding.

CONSUMERS COMPLAIN: Consumers complained that the prices of food items had increased before start of Ramazan, and asked the district government to curb profiteering and hoarding.

They said price of melon had jumped from Rs90 per five kg to Rs170 to Rs180, adding price of apple increased from Rs160 per kg to Rs180, onion from Rs20 to Rs30 per kg, tomato from Rs20 to Rs30 per kg, okra from Rs50 to Rs70 per kg, brinjal from Rs40 to Rs50 per kg, apricot from Rs120 to Rs160 per kg and banana from Rs150 to Rs200 per dozen.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2016