Qalat residents without electricity for last few days as fuel ends

QALAT (Pajhwok): Residents of Qalat, the capital of southern Zabul province, say they have been without electricity for the past few days and face numerous problems as a result.

Qalat residents are provided 2.5 megawatts of electricity from diesel –run generators and have no other source of electricity production and fuel to run the generators has finished.

Maulvi Gul Ahmed, a resident of Qalat city, told Pajhwok Afghan News that previously, they availed electricity from 6pm to 12am but currently they were supplied electricity for just one hour in 24 hours only to pump water from well.

But for the past few days, people have been deprived of the one hour electricity as well. He said the situation had created many problems for people as their houses remained dark at night and they could not use devices that run on electricity, asking the authorities to solve the problem.

Another resident Muhammad Awnar Omar also told Pajhwok Afghan News that the government electricity had recently been cut off.

Most residents of Qalat city used electricity to light their houses and draw water from wells and in the absence of electricity, they confronted many problems, he added.

He said some residents used solar power, but most residents were poor and could not afford to buy solar panels and batteries, urging the government to resolve the issue.

Officials acknowledge electricity has been suspended to Qalat city due to lack of fuel to run the generators.

Maulvi Wali Muhammad Shafiq, electricity department head, told Pajhwok that on the one hand, people and government agencies owed millions of afghanis in unpaid bills and on the other hand fuel had ended recently, due to which the supply of electricity has been stopped.

However, he said the International Committee of the Red Cross had promised to provide 18,000 liters of fuel for one month to generate electricity.

According to him, the problem of lack of electricity could be fundamentally solved if people and government agencies paid their bills on time and cleared their arears.

"We provide 2.5 megawatts of electricity to Qalat city from diesel generators. There are five thousand consumers who unfortunately do not pay their  bills on time and about 900 consumers who are government agencies, commercial places and common people owe 81.18 million afghanis in unpaid bills.”

He asked people to pay their bills on time and clear their dues in order to avail uninterrupted electricity. He said the pylons of government electricity had reached Zabul and only 30 percent work on the project remained in complete. They were trying to find budget to complete the electricity transmission.

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