GILGIT:Tufail Khan recently purchased a mobile phone for his college-going son in Gilgit. Demands from Khan’s son aside, the uncertain security situation in the region forced the poor father to buy the gadget to be able to inquire about his son’s whereabouts and safety.
HunzaNews February 15th, 2014.
Prolonged hours of load-shedding, however, have left the device useless as there is not enough electricity to charge the phone and keep its battery working for a whole day.
“The mobile phone is useless, at least in my case,” said Khan, who is a vendor by profession. “I had bought it for my son given the security situation of the region. But I realised I wasted my money as it remains switched off most of the time due to a dead battery.”
Power outages have increased in the region since the onset of winter. The menace exacerbated especially after November, when consumption of power increased manifold while production fell considerably due to frozen lakes and glaciers. Residents have electricity for hardly four to five hours a day, that too with very low voltage.
“If you want to keep your phone powered on, you need to make sure you do not miss the electricity when it is available,” Khan said, adding they get electricity for an hour each in the morning and in the afternoon, and then for 2 hours every night.
Minister for Water and Power Deedar Ali said about 120 megawatts of electricity would be generated by 2015 in G-B, a region that is believed to have a capacity of producing more than 50,000 megawatts of power. “There is a crisis at present, but I assure you things will get better soon,” the minister told The Express Tribune. “The government has recently approved 16 power projects and it will help reduce load-shedding in the coming years.”
Express
