PAN, January 1, 2012

Mazar residents avail electricity only 2 hours a day

A construction company owner, Zafar Hashmi, said they have electricity for six hours a day which could not fulfill their needs

By ‌Zabihullah Ihsas

Residents of Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of northern Balkh province, say electricity remains suspended for 22 hours a day in the city, but officials promise solving the problem soon.

"We have the light for two hours in 24 hours since last six days," said a resident of Dasht-i-Shor area on the outskirts of the city.

Syed Alam told Pajhwok Afghan News most of works at their house were performed with the help of electricity and they had to face a lot problems when the power was suspended.

“The blackout ends for two hours after 12am. Therefore, we cannot properly take benefit of it,” he said. He asked the officials concerned to resolve the issue to enable people to get a sigh of relief during winter.

A construction company owner, Zafar Hashmi, said they have electricity for six hours a day which could not fulfill their needs.

Deputy water and energy director, Rohollah Rohani, said the problem was a result of technical problems in the T61-electric transformer. He said they were trying to fix the problem in next two days.

He said the number of power consumers had increased from 60,000 to 90,000 families in two year despite the aging power supply system.

Three years ago, the Ministry of Energy and Power had said it was launching a project to extent and development the power supply system at a cost of $20 million, however work on the World Bank-funded project was yet to be started.

Water and Energy Director Nasir said they had time and again shared the problem with the ministry concerned, but no practical steps had so far been taken in this regard.

Of the 250 power transformers approved by the ministry with financial support from the World Bank, only 20 had so far been installed.

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