ISLAMABAD/PESHAWAR: Federal Minister for Energy Owais Leghari on Thursday sought Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi’s help on the incidents at grid stations in KP, while the provincial government has directed all the divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners to ensure that load-shedding does not exceed 12-hour in any area of the province.
The federal minister Leghari has written a letter to the Interior Minister, stating that “influential individuals” in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are leading protests on the premises of grid stations.
The minister highlighted that provincial assembly members and others had unlawfully directed grid station staff to restore electricity, exacerbating line losses and electricity theft issues at affected feeders. This situation not only jeopardizes grid station security but also poses risks to safety of the staffers.
He said that KP police were not registering cases against individuals involved in these incidents.
Leghari also urged for immediate measures to prevent unauthorised access to grid stations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and demanded that cases be registered against those responsible for disrupting operations and threatening security.
The loadshedding dispute between Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and centre intensified on Wednesday as Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur entered a grid station in his hometown of Dera Ismail Khan and restored the power supply.
On the other hand, the KP Home Department has directed all the divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners to ensure that loadshedding does not exceed 12 hours in any area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The directive was given in a letter written to the officials in view of 22-hour power outages in some places of the province.
The home department wrote that it has come to its notice that in some areas of the province electricity supply remained suspended over and above the scheduled loadshedding.
The department directed all deputy commissioners to monitor the load shedding schedule. In case of a fault, electricity should be restored in the minimum possible time.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur has alleged that the federal government is taking revenge from the people of the province for not supplying them with required electricity.
