SWABI: Industrialists of Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly Speaker Asad Qaiser have been at loggerheads over power supply to three feeders in the constituency from where he was elected in the last general election, sources said.

A few ago entrepreneurs of Gadoon estate had staged a protest demonstration and stormed the local grid station, disconnecting power supply to Marghuz, Baja-Bamkhel and Jhanda feeders. Marghuz is the native town of Mr Qaiser and the adjacent areas are included in the constituency of his brother MNA Agibullah.

The industrialists had set a three-day deadline to the Pesco to either stop the power supply to the three feeders from Gadoon grid station or face more protest demonstrations. They alleged that the PTI lawmakers had diverted electricity to three feeders for political reasons and in turn Gadoon industrialists and workers staying in various colonies had been facing excessive outages.

Sources said that officials of the Gadoon estate and Topi city police stations had been told to remain alert and take action if anyone tried to enter the gird station. They said that soon after the `stoppage` of electricity by industrialists the other day Mr Qaiser had contacted the Pesco chief and raised the issue of disconnection of power supply.

They said that he was assured that no one would be allowed to enter the grid station and stop power supply.

However, other sources quoted the industrialists as saying that they were victimised for political reasons and if they would not get the required power supply the working conditions at Gadoon estate would deteriorate.

The sources said that the poor law and order situation, extortion, outages and ban on gas connections had already left a far-reaching impact on industry in KP, which might prove damaging for future investment. When contacted, an industriahst said that the issue had created differences between the government and Gadoon entrepreneurs.