MITHI, May 29: Load-shedding of 12 to 14 hours has paralysed routine life in Tharparkar and affected business activities.

Jumo, Patu, Om Parkash, Mohammad Rahim and other residents of Mithi told Dawn on Tuesday that the municipal administration used to supply them canal water in the past through pipelines for drinking purpose.

However, they remained deprived of potable water, despite a lapse of one month. They are compelled to purchase water from tanker mafia which sells it for Rs2,000 to Rs3,000 per tanker.

They alleged that the henchmen of municipal administration were minting money by selling canal water to contractors for construction and influential individuals. A senior official of the municipal administration claimed that it was difficult to fulfil the demand of water in the localities concerned because Hesco was observing load-shedding for 12 to 14 hours and the available power supply was inadequate for pumps to fill water storage tanks.

It also led to unemployment of daily wage earners.

He pointed out that the problem of supply of canal water to Mithi, Islamkot and other areas would only be solved when timings of load-shedding in Naukot and Mithi town would be same.

When it was brought to the notice of the Digri Hesco SDO that different timings of load-shedding hampered supply of canal water, he said remedial measures would be taken.

Harji, Chelaram, Nandlal and other residents of Mithi complained prolonged outages had deprived them of canal water and brackish water of town’s tube-wells was not being supplied in adequate quantity, on alternate days.

Mohansingh, Jilam, and Govind, who appeared in the annual examination of HSC part-I recently, said frequent power outages during examinations had caused discomforts to students because they could not study properly for papers.

Modesh, a tailor, said six youths were working in his shop to earn livelihood but he had to relieve four of them owing to power outage for several hours.

It is learnt that a large number of people who used to work as daily wagers at flour chakkis in towns are rendered jobless due to load-shedding for longer duration. Patients, old people and children are the worst sufferers.

TRADERS’ ROW: Differences between two groups of traders could not be resolved despite a lapse of two days. Both groups have held demonstrations against each other.

About 200 traders held a protest rally on Monday evening against traders of the Meghwar community and observed a shutter-down.

Addressing a press conference, chairman Tilokchand and president Aslam Qaimkhani of the traders association alleged that a number of youths of the Meghwar community, who were protesting against the murder of stock assistant Garuo Meghwar on Saturday evening, had misbehaved with traders and forced them to close business.

The traders association filed an application to police against the alleged excesses of the Meghwar traders. Police took two of the protesters in custody but released them later due to political pressure.

Office-bearers and other members of the traders association announced that they would continue shutter-down till action was taken against the Meghwars who had been nominated in the application filed with police.

Shops of the Meghwars were seen open on Tuesday in Mithi while other traders observed shutter-down on the second consecutive day.