LARKANA, July 21 Victims of prolonged power outages took out a procession on Tuesday in Qambar and adjoining areas against Hesco.

Carrying banners and chanting slogans, protesters marched on the main roads of the town and assembled at Martyrs Square. The procession started from the cricket ground, led by Mumtaz Lakho, Ghulam Mustafa Shaikh and Himath Mughiri.

Speakers on the occasion lashed out at the indifferent attitude of Hesco and held the power company responsible for devising polices that had worsened the situation.

The loadshedding time had been extended to 16 hours in Qambar town while villages were braving more than 16 hours of outages.

The unscheduled and lengthy power shutdowns have not only paralysed the life of people, but have also left water supply station in the town inoperative, creating a potable water crisis as well, they said.

The speakers said the Hesco officials had bent upon observing what they said a 'hand-made' loadshedding which had added to the people's miseries.

They alleged that despite of frequent outages, power consumers were receiving inflated and 'detection' bills while incorrect meter readings had worsened their problems.

They urged Hesco for an end to unscheduled loadshedding and announced observing a complete shutter-down strike on Thursday in the town.Meanwhile, Hesco efforts bore fruit when power supply to almost all feeders had been restored after a 36-hours power breakdown.

Hesco workers were still busy restoring City-I and City-III feeders as load of the two was shifted from 132 KV grid to 66 KV temporarily.

Sources said a fire at 132 KV gird station had destroyed five feeders. The destroyed panels were replaced with double capacity of 2,400 amperes.

However, local PPP leadership, apparently shedding the crocodile's tears and defending its position on the 'power crisis', said in a press statement on Tuesday that PPP's top leadership was in constant with Hesco for rectifying the situation.

Our Sukkur Correspondent adds Almost half of the Sukkur city was without electricity for the last nine hours.

Hesco officials said the power supply had been suspended due to falling of a tree on live conductors, which five poles were razed to the ground near the railway ground.

Residents of Sukkur have already been facing not only long-hours loadshedding, but also frequent breakdowns and tripping for last many months.

On Tuesday morning, power supply was suspended to the city centre for two hours from 830am to 10 30am. And just after one hour at about 11 30, it was again disrupted, which was not restored till filing of this report.

Due to the power outage, all the main bazaars and shopping centres remained deserted while the citizens were facing shortage of water, even in mosques.

This reporter tried hard to contact Hesco officers, but no one was available to comment.

However, the SDO concerned along with line superintendents and other line staff was present on the site where repair work was in progress.