Citizens hold protest over prolonged load-shedding in Karachi

KARACHI (92 News) – Prolonged unannounced load-shedding during scorching heat sparked on Wednesday protests in multiple areas of Karachi. According to the reports, the citizens appear to have lost their temper over outages lasting even up to 24 hours in a few localities. Residents of Lines Area and Abyssinia Lines took to the streets to protest massive load-shedding by the K-Electric. The protestors demanded to end load-shedding and over billing immediately. The protesters blocked Shahrah-e-Quaideen, but reopened one of its tracks after talks with police and Rangers officials. They ended the blockade after KE officials assured them that no power load management would be done at night. A similar demonstration was staged outside the KE office in Malir on Tuesday, at which the protesters also complained about over-billing by the power distribution company. The KE management maintained that the power cuts were caused by faults and tripping in areas with power theft. The shortage of furnace oil and gas has also affected the company’s power generation capacity, they said.