NAUNDERO: Complete shutter down strike was observed by the residents of Naundero on Wednesday against prolonged electricity load shedding and issuance of monthly additional detection bills to legal consumers holding meters.
Large number of citizens gathered in front of municipality after shutting down their shops in protest of pro-longed load-shedding. The protesters said that Naundero was facing scheduled and unscheduled power outages of upto 12 to 14 hours daily, while the SEPCO officials were not repairing dysfunctional Pole Mounted Transformers (PMTs).
The protesters took out a huge rally led by Ghulam Hyder Narejo, Sahab Khan Shaikh, Waryam Chano, Salim Chano, Mumtaz Sethar, Mushtaque Kumbhar, Sartaj Shaikh, Javed Bhutto, Maulana Abdul Qudoons Panhwar, Naeem Bhutto and others.
They marched through various roads and bazaars requesting every citizen to join the protest for securing their basic rights. Hundreds of citizens gathered outside municipality and started chanting slogans against the local SEPCO officials.
While addressing the protesters, these leaders said that SEPCO employees were involved in massive corruption and kept on extorting money from the consumers and villages. They said that consumers were being harassed via inflated bills coupled with separate detection bills every month.
They said 12 to 14 hours outage is in sheer violation of declared government policy and due to massive outage, trade activities have taken a halt, while businessmen have suffered huge losses. They said Naundero, hometown of Bhutto leaders, was “orphaned” after their martyrdom and there is nobody to look after fundamental necessities of Naundero residents.
They said that people will now vote in favour of those candidates who they believe will provide better healthcare, proper education, peace and tranquility, employment, uninterrupted electricity and gas supply or else they will not vote for those who disappear after being elected.
SEPCO SDO Sajad Memon, Hydro Labour Union Chairman Intezar Hussain Hisbani held talks with the protesters and assured them of improvements. They also committed that no additional detection bills will be sent to the consumers in future.
The citizens then dispersed peacefully and the business activity resumed.
