PTCL given five weeks to improve services

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=178399

A division bench of the Supreme Court has given the PTCL five weeks to improve its service structure affected by load-shedding. The bench comprising Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday and Justice Fakir Muhammad Khokhar took suo moto of the poor services of PTCL in a local newspaper column.

On Monday, PTCL chief technical officer Mohammad Nasarullah and the Lahore regional manager appeared before the court, taking the defence that the main problem with the company was load-shedding.

They said they had arranged alternate power batteries which did not fulfill the requirement. The bench observed that it was height of negligence on part of the PTCL authorities. The load shedding had been going on for a number of years, reaching its peak last year.

The bench also observed they were surprised to know that the PTCL had not made any arrangements after experiencing the load-shedding. The department had been sleeping over the matter, they said adding even a layman knew the batteries were ineffective in the kind of load shedding the country had been experiencing.

Nasarullah told the court that the PTCL needed four weeks to improve its services. However, the bench gave five weeks to PTCL to remove all difficulties, saying after the period no excuse would be accepted in this regard.