Islamabad: Fed up with continuous long hours of loadshedding amidst the scorching heat wave, angry protesters in Karachi blocked traffic for several hours in Lasbela Chowk on Friday, even as the issue rocked the National Assembly.
In Karachi, angry protesters started blocking roads in the early evening, fed up with electricity outages of more than 12 hours daily.
Long queues of vehicles piled up at Lasbela Chowk, as protesters refused to budge.
Protesters said the electricity helpline was not responding to their calls. Earlier, it was reported that electricity in Karachi was unavailable due to a technical fault and also non-payment of bills.
The traffic was cleared after several hours, Karachi Police said.
Earlier in the day, the National Assembly witnessed an altercation between the ruling and opposition parties over the hours-long electricity loadshedding in Karachi.
Korangi, Lyari, North Karachi, and Surjani are among the areas witnessing over 12 hours of loadshedding daily.
Minister of State for Finance, Revenue and Power Division Ali Pervaiz Malik apprised the House that K-Electric had achieved zero load shedding on 1,500 out of 2,109 feeders in Karachi and maintained that 6 to 10 hours of loadshedding was being conducted on the feeders with higher losses.
He went further to insist that there was “no loadshedding of 16 hours”, instead the duration for the blackouts was 6-10 hours.
This was challenged by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) MNA Nabeel Gabol, who said that the minister of the state had been misinformed that the duration of loadshedding was 6-10 hours.
“My constituency in Lyari is facing 16-hour loadshedding,” he said, adding that the departments give false briefings to the ministers.
The PPP member challenged Malik saying that he would resign as a member of parliament if the loadshedding was 10 hours long, or the federal minister should resign if the duration was more than 10 hours.
On the electricity price hike, Malik said the tariff was regulated by the National Electrical Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) following a prescribed procedure.
He added that the electricity prices had not changed and the price hikes were due to “fuel price adjustments”
