Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, July 24: People’s Democratic Party (PDP) today held a strong protest demonstration against the Government for its failure to address people’s problems particularly regarding power and drinking water and demanded their immediate redressal.
In view of the complete collapse of power distribution system in this scorching summer months in Jammu, the focus of demonstrations remained lack of electricity, while workers also highlighted scarcity of ration, kerosene oil, LPG and drinking water.
The speakers castigated the Government for pushing the entire Valley into complete darkness forcing the people to switch over to the ancient means of lighting.
They said even the authorities have failed to stick to the atrocious power schedule announced for the winters while tariff has been increased five folds over the last five years. In many cases, they pointed out, bills have been inflated beyond reasonable limits with the result people have been unable to pay the tariff.
Hundreds of PDP workers including women led by vice-president, T S Bajwa, senior leaders, Ved Mahajan, Daman Bhasin, Shanti Devi, S Jagjeet Singh Jagga, Amrik Singh Reen, Bharat Choudhary, Bhushan Dogra, Dr Harmesh Salathia and F C Bhagat assembled on the main road at Gandhi Nagar, near women college and raised slogans against the State Government for making people suffer in hot weather.
The protesters also staged a sit in on the road due to which the traffic on the ever busy road also remained disrupted for long time. The protesters also raised slogans against the PDD and PHE Departments over unscheduled power cuts and shortage of water.
Addressing the protestors, Bajwa said that the power supply system gets frequently broken down due to damage of transformers at many places. He pointed out that the Government had with much fanfare announced the establishment of transformer banks, which, in fact, proved to be another hallow promise by it.
The speakers said while the water charges are regularly collected from consumers, but in many areas, especially in villages, women are forced to fetch water from the sources, miles away from their homes. Even, at places, people are forced to melt snow to get drinking water.
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