SUKKUR, Jan 19 Entire Sukkur city plunged into darkness on Tuesday night when duration of loadshedding increased from eight to 12 hours.

Grid station officials attributed this outage to a fault in Guddu thermal power station.

In Sukkur, eight-hour loadshedding is being done since last month, without issuing any schedule to the press or people. Today power supply was suspended at 630pm. It was restored at 830pm, but the supply was again disrupted just after five minutes.

When contacted, an official at the city grid station said that power supply had been disrupted due to development of a major fault at Guddu thermal power station. The supply would be restored at 930pm, he said.

But when Guddu thermal power station contacted, an official ruling out any fault in the power station said that officials at the grid station were telling lies.

But Sadiq Kobhar, the media manager of Hesco, said that transmission line had tripped from Guddu thermal power station and that its officials were telling lies.

According to the grid station official, fault occurred at Guddu thermal power station and power supply would be restored within one hour.

Now the question arises that how the grid station official came to know that the fault occurred in the thermal power station would be rectified in one hour. However, power supply could not restored till filing of this report.

People of upper Sindh, including Sukkur, Pano Akil, Ghotki, Kandhkot, Kashmore, Jacobabad and Shikarpur, are already braving eight to 12 hours of undeclared loadshedding.

Hesco does not issue any schedule regarding loadshedding, which obviously is to encourage undeclared loadshedding.

WATER This prolonged outage created an acute water shortage in Sukkur and its allied areas.

Due to annual closure of canals from Jan 5 to 20, the taluka municipal administration is meeting only 25 per cent of water requirement of the city.

Undeclared loadshedding is further disturbing the supply of drinking water, adding to the misery of the people.

Our Staff correspondent adds from Hyderabad Contract employees of Kunar oil field in Tandojam continued their protest on Tuesday against the management's refusal to regularise their services.

In a rally, they raised slogans against the third party contract system and demanded regularisation.

Nasruddin Nahyoon and other leaders of employees said that if their services were not regularised, they would move court of law to get their right.

Mr Nahyoon said that on the one hand the management was not regularising the contract employees while on the other it was planning to make fresh appointments, which was injustice with poor workers.

He said that the oil field management should regularise their services and avoid making new appointments.