KHYBER: Residents blocked the Torkham Highway in Jamrud area here on Monday against the recent decision of the Tribal Areas Electricity Supply Company to subject the entire population of Khyber tribal district to 22 hours of power suspension daily.

Also, people disrupted the power supply to the entire Landi Kotal area for several hours.

The mobs later called off the protests, reopening the road and restoring electric supply to Landi Kotal, as the district administration assured them the duration of power supply would be increased by two hours daily.

They, however, warned they would indefinitely suspend power supply to the entire Khyber tribal district along with the closure of the Torkham Highway if the old schedule of six hours of power supply was not restored.

Admin promises enhanced supply of electricity

Tesco recently reduced power supply in the area to just two hours daily, insisting that it can no longer provide free electricity to domestic consumers in tribal districts due to financial constraints.

Having installed power meters in all commercial centers in the region, the public utility is urging domestic consumers to follow suit as there hasn’t been any subsidy on electricity for the last few years.

Meanwhile, residents in the Bara area have demanded an increase in the number of centres for the distribution of cash handouts to local women under the Benazir Income Support Programme.

In a letter to the BISP director-general on behalf of Bara residents, local MPA Suhail Afridi said that the current three centres in the area were located in congested residential areas, so women beneficiaries of the BISP found it difficult to receive cash due to the presence of people in large numbers and little space for waiting.

He added that most of those women had to return empty-handed due to overcrowded centres.

The MPA said that the opening of more centres in Bar Qambarkhel and Shalobar areas would ease the influx of visitors to the current three BISP centres and facilitate women recipients of financial assistance in Bar Qambarkhel and Shalobar areas, where over 2,000 women were registered for the programme.

People in Landi Kotal, too, complained that the BIPS had restricted women recipients of cash handouts to one main centre only while closing down the smaller centres.

In a statement, tehsil council chairman Shah Khalid said that the closure of smaller BISP centres would greatly inconvenience local women as they would have to collect cash from just one centre, where they would be subjected to prolonged waits after arriving from far-off areas.

He demanded an immediate reopening of small-time BISP centres to the benefit of the women registered for cash collection.

Published in Dawn, May 7th, 2024