LAHORE: Frustrated with the increasing hours of loadshedding, people took out huge protest rallies in various parts of the country particularly Punjab, Aaj News reported.

While Three people were killed during some incident of firing and violent protest.

Angered protesters abandoned their daily routines to form rallies and protest against the discriminatory long load-shedding hours in various parts of Sindh, KP and Punjab.

Multan,Gujranwala, Sheikhupura, Lahore, Hafizabad and other major cities observed violent protesters which brought daily life to a halt.

In Jalalpur Bhatiyan protesters destroyed the WAPDA office and set it on fire, also staged demonstrations burnt tires. PML-N MPA Shahid Bhatti was leading the protesters in the area.

Traffic was suspended in most parts of Multan and Faisalabad because of road blockades as protesters burnt effigies of people they hold responsible for their distress.

In Faisalabad, protestors blocked Faisalabad-Samanduri road against load shedding for several hours. Police resorted to firing of tear gas shells to disperse the demonstrators who in return pelted stones at the police force. The demonstrators said that they were facing 20 to 22 hours of daily electricity load shedding and were without water to drink.

The protestors attacked the house and office of MNA Zahid Iqbal and caused damaged to them. The angry protestors pelted his office and homes. Police had to resort to aerial firing to disperse the protestors.

Similar power outages have been reported in rural areas of Sindh.

Taking notice of the protest, The government has now announced 80 billion to overcome power crisis, although it had to be released last month.

In budget 2012-13 government has provided various avenues and budgetary resources for the power sector by increasing allocation for subsidies from earlier projection of Rs 120 billion for the next fiscal year to Rs 150 billion with a major portion of for the power and energy sector, but speculations are, that these efforts will only prove useful in increasing the National Grid’s power to an insignificant amount; not attending to the realistic resources needed to curb the crippling power crisis in Pakistan.