rawalpindi - The residents of Railway colonies (Railway Diesel Colony and Railway Construction Colony) are facing unannounced hours long loadshedding during the holy month of Ramazan.

Besides putting the people in difficulties in this hot summer, the loadsheeding of electricity has badly affected the business activities in the areas of Railway Diesel Colony, Railway Construction Colony and other parts of Westridge area.

The residents have demanded the government and railway authorities to pay heed towards the problem or else they would stage protest demonstration.

Talking to The Nation yesterday, an employee of Pakistan Railway said that they are facing 11 hours long announced loadsheeding in hot weather during Ramazan. He said that the students are also facing problems in their studies. He said that he brought the matter into the notice of railway high-ups but no action has been taken so far.

Humaira Bibi, a housewife said that people are facing scorching heat and suffering a lot because of disruption in power supply. She said that they have to awake for whole night in absence of electricity. “WAPDA observed loadshedding for 11 hours on Monday and Tuesday there was no electricity from 4:00am to 12:30pm today,” she said. A teacher of the locality said that they get two to three hours of electricity supply during the twenty-four hours. He said that his refrigerator was switched off and he has to buy ice from market for drinking cold water. Many other railway employees said that WAPDA is not supplying electricity owing to which life has become hard for them. “We cannot sleep during night as mosquitoes bite us,” he said. They demanded the government and railway authorities to end loadshedding; otherwise they would launch protest movement against WAPDA.

Divisional Superintendent (DS) Railways Abdul Maliq and SDO WAPDA Westridge did not attend their cell phones despite repeated phone calls made by this correspondent to know their point of view on excessive loadshedding.