LARKANA The first monsoon drizzle, on Saturday accompanied by a feeble dust storm deprived the residents, of twin towns of Lashari-Dhoon, of electricity.

A few blows of wind were enough to bring down four pylons, originating from 132-KV Larkana grid station while giving Hesco men a tough 24 hours to bring them in their original standing positions.

However, a fire damaged the grid station before supply could reach there resulting in a blackout for the 150,000 residents of twin towns and adjacent villages.

Larkana district and major parts of Qambar-Shahdadkot district are facing worst power crisis since the last two days after the burning down of Out Current Breaker, capacitor bank and underground cable at 132 KV gird station Larkana on Sunday.

Hesco officers were not available for comments. Larkana, Qambar, Shahdadkot, Warah, Mirokhan and Radhan are fed by the 132 KV gird station, Larkana. This grid station has two big transformers and 12 feeders. The feeders are not only over-loaded but frequent tripping and unannounced loadshedding have widened the period of outage from 10 to 16 hours in city and around the adjoining villages.

The sources told this correspondent that installation of a 50 MW power station in Naudero would not help in overcoming the power crisis of Larkana because the generation would be added to National Grid Station.

It is an irony that consumers face prolonged power outages but receive heavy bills, detection bills with over reading of meters becoming a common practice in Larkana and Qambar-Shahdakdot district.

People protested in different areas on Monday. A large number of people under the leadership of Tarique Magsi, Niaz Bhutto assembled at the Gharwah Bridge and blocked Indus Highway while raising slogans.

They blamed Hesco for making routine life miserable by shutting down power for over 38 hours.

Later, the Superintendent Engineer of Hesco assured of early power restoration from Old Naudero feeder.

The residents getting power supply from Baharpur feeder took to streets on Monday for remaining without electricity for the last two days. They encircled the office of Empire Sub-division along with raising slogans, broke into the office and damaged the furniture while demanding early power restoration.

Reports from Qambar and Shahdadkot said that loadshedding has increased to 16 hours while heavy fluctuation, low voltage and frequent shutdown of different feeders are damaging the electric appliances.