MANSEH R A: The residents of Mansehra city and adjoining areas have threatened agitation complaining the Peshawar Electricity Supply Company is subjecting them to the unscheduled loadshedding of more than 12 hours daily.

They also insisted the power crisis had caused an acute shortage of water.

`We have been troubled by the prolonged, unscheduled power outages since the formal start of the summer season. If smooth supply of electricity is not ensured without delay, we will block the Karakoram Highway suspending all sorts of traffic,` resident Ishtiaq Khan told reporters here.

He said the federal government recently claimed to have almost ended loadshedding but the claim had turned out to be false after the start of the summer season.

The resident said the power crisis had adversely affected life in the district, including business.

Another resident also complained about the prolonged and unscheduled loadshedding and said the suspension of electric supply for long hours had led to the acute water shortage in the district.

Trader Ajmal Khan said like many other local residents, he was having sleepless nights due to the excessive power cuts.

He said the excessive loadshedding had hit commercial activitiesbadly and thuscausingheavylosses totradersand others associated with them.

NGOS` HELP SOUGHT: District nazim Sardar Said Ghulam on Friday urged national and international nongovernmental organisations to come forward for providing shelter to the students of more than 600 schools having no buildings in Mansehra.

`I have chosen education as a one-point agenda to bring allchildren of the district to schoolbutface Enancialdifficulties in executing it as over 600 schools destroyed in the 2005 earthquake are still running without buildings, he told a news conference here on Friday.

The nazim said he had already taken the issue with the federal and provincial governments but got no response.

`I am in contact with many national and international NGOs to convince them to reconstruct such schools. The NGOs have yet to respond to the request,` he said.