HYDERABAD: Frus­tra­ted consumers held demonstrations and blocked roads in the city on Saturday in protest against prolonged power outages and frequent burning of pole-mounted transformers (PMTs) because of poor maintenance by Hesco officials.

A large number of residents of GOR Colony and Naseem Nagar, who gathered at Giddu Chowk and Hyderabad bypass, respectively, and burned tyres and garbage on the road to block vehicular traffic, said that the PMTs supplying power to their areas went haywire and Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) officials were reluctant to repair them. Their areas were without power for over 24 hours, they complained.

They said that they had complained to Hesco subdivisions concerned many times against poorly repaired PMTs which went haywire again and again. Their requests fell on deaf ears and nobody took them seriously, they said.

They quoted Hesco SDOs as saying that they had not sufficient staff to remove PMTs fault. Still, they said, the poor consumers continued to receive inflated bills, which they had no recourse but to pay.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industry expressed serious concern over prolonged outages, low voltage and fluctuation in almost all areas of the district and said the power breakdowns caused an acute shortage of water in the city and created hurdles to disposal of sewage.

The chamber president Mohammad Akram Ansari, senior vice president Sikandar Ali Rajput and other office-bearers said in a statement that Hesco made tall claims that it would exempt Sehr and Iftar times in residential areas from loadshedding by shutting power in industrial zone during Ramazan.

But instead, they said, the company subjected residential areas as well as industrial zone to 10 to 12 hours loadshedding. Hesco has made people’s lives more miserable during the holy month, they said.

They said that businesspeople were seriously worried over outages, low voltage and fluctuation in almost all localities of the city which had led to an acute shortage of drinking water and non-disposal of sewage.

They said that on the one hand the Water and Sanita­tion agency (Wasa) had completely failed to supply water to consumers while on the oth­er the agency regularly sup­plied filtered water to tanker mafia and livestock traders due to some vested interests at the cost of domestic consumers who were deprived of water for many days.

They said that no action was being taken against Wasa incompetence and people were left to suffer in hot weather during the holy month.

They appealed to prime minister, federal minister for water and power, Sindh chief minister, provincial minister for local bodies and Hyderabad divisional commissioner to immediately ensure supply of water and power to people to give them some sort of relief in the sweltering heat.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2016