Sleepless in Cantonment

PESHAWAR: The majority of people in the cantonment area in the provincial capital spent a sleepless night on Thursday due to power breakdown.

The power breakdown began at 11pm on Thursday night and continued till 7am on Friday.

It was astonishing that the sub-divisional officer (SDO) of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) for Peshawar Cantonment, when approached by the residents of cantonment about nature of the fault, said he was not aware of any fault. Also, the contact number of an executive engineer ?mentioned on power bill was stated to be wrong.

The residents of Army Officers Colony, on Bara Road, complained that they had informed the Pesco staff and complaint office in time but the power supply was restored the next morning.

“We were waiting for the power supply to be restored and have some sleep. But we couldn’t sleep as it was restored at 7am when I was planning to go to office. And my two children had to skipped the school as they were not able to sleep the whole night,” complained one of the affected residents, Sabahat Adil of the Army Officer Colony.

Another resident, Irfan Khan complained their UPS stopped working after three hours and his elderly and ailing parents could not sleep at night. He said they the Pesco staff was not aware of the fault and, therefore, had no idea when the power supply would be restored.

Senior officials at the Pesco headquarters said the affairs of the company had started deteriorating after what they said ‘incompetent and corrupt’ people were appointed to key positions.

“Gone are the days when people’s complaints were addressed in Pesco. Now most of the people, including chief of the power distribution company, are politically appointees and, therefore, they don’t care for the consumers and their genuine problems,” one official said on condition of anonymity. Pesco spokesman Shaukat Afzal also didn’t know about the power breakdown and its nature.