SHANGLA: The residents of Shangla have demanded of the Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) to establish power transformers repairing workshop in Shangla as due to its non-availability the local community suffered at large.
The local residents including traders in Shangla, Bisham told reporters on Tuesday that they had been facing severe problems due to non-availability of the Pesco workshop for transformer repairing and they had to take transformers to Chakdara and Nowshehra which took couple of weeks.
They said it was a very common practice that whenever transformer of any area whether village or commercial areas they had to collect money for its repair despite paying huge inflated bills sending by the Pesco without conducting meter reading.
Attaullah Beshami, a trader, said lack of transformer repairing workshop had been a major problem especially in the summer season because mostly transformers burned during summer season and then traders and domestic consumers had to wait for weeks.
Fayaz Khan, another businessman, said recently the main bazaar transformer was burned and despite the consumers frequent requests it was shifted to Mardan for repairing besides collecting its expenditures from the shopkeepers Rs 300 from per trader were collected from them.
He said two days the transformer was lying faulty in the pylon and then they requested the assistant commissioner, Bisham for taking action on the issue thus the transformer was then put down and taken to Nowshehra where it took two days in repairing.
Bakht Rawan, an elder, said their village transformer was damaged due to which electricity suspended in the neighbourhood for five days and they faced problems.
He said they had to collect Rs 500 from each house in the local community of 70 houses and paid to a private person who had taken the transformer to Chakdara for repairing.
Shujat Ali, a local said that former MNA from Shangla and current president PML-N KP Amir Muqam had promised them that the workshop will be established in Shangla for repairing the transformers at doorstep but the promise went deaf ear.
He said they expect from the Pesco and incumbent government to establish the transformer workshops as soon as possible and ensure emergency transformers at major markets so that the consumers less affected.
