Humid monsoon, power breakdown tend people to have sleepless nights

By Mohammad Saleem Shahid

Imagine if whether is hot and humid in monsoon season and electricity goes off for long intervals in the night, what will happen to the people? Answer is very simple; they will have sleepless nights and have a bad and jittery mood the following day with reduced capacity of work at offices and businesses.

Power breakdown is not just a breakdown of sleep but it also causes water shortage depriving people of a refreshing bath or cleaning of body and environment. People in Rawalpindi and Islamabad complain of being fleeced at the hands of the water tanker services as the official ones are hardly in reach of common people and the private ones charge double the official rates upto Rs 800 per tanker.

“We have to spend more than Rs 4000 per month to fetch water through tankers. When there were no rains, we had lame excuses from water supply department that the water table has gone down, so water supply will be affected. With heavy rains that flooded most parts of the city, why water is in short supply now,” asks Ms Zohra Usmani hailing from Faizabad locality of Rawalpindi.

“I have had many sleepless nights because of the irregular and unannounced electricity load shedding. My family is badly affected as children do not get up early for schools as they hardly sleep,” said Moin Khan, a resident of Sadiqabad.

“Obviously, we have to suffer due to power breakdown as our successive governments did not focus on bridging the gap between demand and supply. On political reasoning, they have electrified several villages but did not generate electricity,” said Raja Nayyar Iqbal, a science teacher from Bhara Kahu.

A media report quoting from a medical journal says people having insomnia or sleeplessness due to any reason may be at increased risk for ulcers. Researchers in Britain discovered that the protein TFF2, which helps stomach lining repaired, mostly acts during the night when one sleeps and if someone does not sleep, then lining protection is affected which becomes a cause of ulcer in the stomach.