By IANS,
Islamabad : Power cuts continued in several cities and towns in all four provinces of Pakistan despite the government’s assurances not to resort to load-scheduling during the holy month of Ramzan, a media report said Thursday.
Protests were held in many cities against the power outages despite government assurances of uninterrupted power supply, especially at ‘Sahri’ (the pre-dawn meal before the fast begins) and ‘Iftaar’ (the ritual of breaking the fast in the evening), the Urdu daily Jang reported.
The power cuts lasted 12 to 18 hours in most cities, and even for 20 hours at some places, forcing people to scramble around in the dark for the pre-fast meal.
Larkana town of Sind observed a protest shutdown, with all business and commercial establishments and even petrol vends closed. Resentment was also brewing in other towns such as Hyderabad, Mirpur Khas, Nawabshah and Sukkur where long and unannounced power cuts were reported throughout the day and night.
In Punjab province, long hours of outages were reported from Lahore, Multan, Faislabad, Gujranwala and Sargodha, while in Balochistan electricity remained truant most of the day in Quetta, Chaman, Nasirabad and Zhob.
In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, cities that suffered long hours of power cuts included Peshawar, Swat, Naushera and Mardan.