CHITRAL: The Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) is using a bizarre method to recover the dues from consumers in Chitral by suspending the supply to them for four hours a day.

An official of Power Distribution Centre (PDC) in the Pesco headquarters told Dawn that the step had been ordered by the company high-ups as there was a large amount outstanding against the consumers in Chitral.

The official, however, could not explain the rationale behind suspending power supply to realise the outstanding dues and the mechanism of its working, and only said the order was from the high-ups.

It is to mention here that after completion of Golen Gol power station, Pesco provides electricity supply to over 47,000 consumers in the district, out of which, 26,000 were earlier fed by provincial energy department, Pedo. But since the Reshun hydropower station run by Pedo was washed away by flash floods in 2015, its consumers had been without electricity.

Riaz Ahmed Diawanbaigi, a member of the district council from Chitral town, said the attitude of Pesco was unacceptable to the people. He said the people would protest against the four hours of daily power outage.

Fazle Rabbi, an electrical engineer, said out of the 36MW electricity generated by Golen Gol power station, only 10MW was consumed and the rest went to waste because the transmission line was yet to be completed to connect the power station to the national grid.

He pointed out that irrational move of four-hour daily outage was causing a loss of Rs700,000 to the company as during the period, the estimated consumption of electricity was 5,000 units.

When contacted, Chitral Deputy Commissioner Irshad Sodhar also expressed anguish over the irrational step taken by Pesco.

He said the step would force the people to use wood for cooking and heating which would in turn put pressure on the local forests, while law and order situation could also be created if the practice continued.

A source in the Golen Gol hydropower station told Dawn that the power supply was not stopped even for a minute and that it were the Pesco high-ups who had made the decision.

Repeated attempts were made to contact Pesco CEO to know his version, but it was told that he was busy in a meeting.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2018