Energy Minister Awais Leghari on Wednesday wrote to Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, seeking his help in tackling recent incidents of lawmakers in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa leading mobs to various grid stations of the province in a bid to curtail power outages linked to low recoveries.
In his letter, Leghari noted that “responsible” people were leading protests and raids on grid stations across KP, including Mardan, Charsadda, Tank, Bannu and Peshawar. “Provincial assembly members and others gave illegal orders to grid station staff regarding power restoration,” read the letter, adding the situation posed threats to the safety of grid stations and personnel.
He further alleged that a majority of line losses and power theft were occurring from feeders where power was forcibly restored by the lawmakers. Despite this, he wrote, police were not registering cases against those responsible. “This is encouraging the people of other districts to take the law into their hands,” he warned and urged the interior minister direct law enforcement agencies to provide tight security at grid stations.
“Unrelated persons should be prevented from entering grids. PESCO authority to file cases against those who trespass in grid stations,” he added.
A day earlier, KP Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur barged into a grid station in Dera Ismail Khan and forcibly restored the power supply. Declaring his “own” loadshedding plan, he warned that if this were not implemented, the “federation” would have to pay the consequences.
“No area will face loadshedding beyond 12 hours. Assembly members should visit grid stations in their respective areas to ensure compliance with the loadshedding schedule,” he said, reiterating that the province could “shut” the power of the entire country if its citizens continued to be harassed.
Gandapur’s assault was merely the latest of what has become routine in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Earlier, MPA Fazal Elahi—a member of the PTI-backed Sunni Ittehad Council—barged into the Rehman Baba grid station in Peshawar and forcibly restored power. Similarly, enraged citizens forcibly restored electricity from the Hazar Khawani grid station.
In recent weeks, per local media, several parts of KP have recorded loadshedding in excess of 18 hours, with the federal government defending the move as a penalty for areas where a majority of citizens are refusing to pay their bills. The KP government, meanwhile, is demanding that such penalties be restricted to power thieves and has repeatedly called for the government to reduce power bills.