Kabul residents resent prolonged power outages

KABUL (Pajhwok): A number of residents of Kabul complain about hours of daily power outages, while the Da Afghanistan Breshna Shirkat (DABS) says talks are underway with Turkmenistan to address the issue.

Maulvi Mohammad Zakir, a resident of the Kart-i-Seh area of the capital, said: “We are supplied electricity when we don’t need it. There is no logic in power supply timings.”

He claimed: “Loadshedding has created difficulties for people. Being a teacher, I have to compile results on computer. I was unable to prepare results in 15 days,” he grumbled.

Zakir urged the officials concerned to find a solution to the long spells of loadshedding, which disrupted the routine of Kabul residents.

Mohammad, hailing from Kota-i-Sangi, neighbourhood, also took a swipe at the supply of electricity at odd hours:

“We are experiencing prolonged load-shedding at night. Usually, the light comes late at night and is cut off before 4:00am,” he alleged.

The man urged the authorities concerned to focus on power supply at a time consumers needed it and correcting voltage levels.

Power supply would increase with the extension of the import contract, he acknowledged, saying more details would be shared later on.

He added: “The DABS situation is really worrying. To be able to improve the situation, a lot of domestic electricity production had been used.

Officials say 70 percent of the electricity needed in Afghanistan is imported from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Iran.  The remaining 30 percent is supplied from domestic sources.

Based on information from the power utility, about 430MW of electricity were imported from Uzbekistan previously. The import level has now decreased to 200MW.

He added a lot of money had poured into the country in the past 20 years, but little fundamental work had been done to address the issues facing the power sector.

Hikmatullah Maiwand, spokesman for the power utility, said DABS was currently in talks with the envoy of Turkmenistan on extending the contract.

sa/mud