Sukkur, April 12 Hundreds of people from Bunder road, Miani road, Jinnah Chowk, Katcha Bunder and other areas held a demonstration on Bunder Road on Monday in protest against prolonged and unscheduled power outages. Raising slogans against Hesco, the protesters burnt tyres and blocked the road for about two hours.

They accused Hesco of paralysing the city and said that people were neither able to do their routine work during the day nor sleep at night.

Power outages at night were causing hardships to people and also helping criminals, they said.

They criticised federal minister for power for his claims about ending loadshedding by December 2009. The situation has not only remained unchanged but in most cases deteriorated, they said.

They said that 15 to 18 hours of power outage had severely affected trade and business activities and rendered thousands of people jobless. The worst affected were labourers and daily wage-earners, they said. They warned that people would launch a protest movement across the country if the government failed to overcome power shortage.

Our Nawabshah correspondent adds Hundreds of people took to the streets in different areas here on Monday and in protest against prolonged and unscheduled power cuts by the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company.

The protesters gathered outside the press club after marching on different roads.

They accused Hesco of carrying out 15 to 17 hours of loadshedding, causing immense hardships to women, children and the elderly.

The protesters criticised the government for taking no serious to resolve the energy crisis.

They said federal minister for power had been making and breaking promises about ending power shortage. They demanded his resignation. They said the country faced an energy crisis but Hesco was not following its schedule and calls made to its complaints cell were not attended.

An official at the local grid station told this correspondent that they had been directed to carry out 12 hours of loadshedding, but the National Control Centre and the Regional Control Centre were cutting supplies at their ends, increasing the duration to 16 hours.