KARACHI: Consumers’ miseries end after 48 hours: Power breakdown
By Shamim-ur-Rahman
KARACHI, May 2: While Karachiites in many parts suffered owing to massive and long-duration power breakdowns since Tuesday, the KESC field vehicles, which were seen active in General Pervez Musharraf’s pre-referendum rally, remained indoors despite several complaints lodged with the composite complaint centres.
The worst-affected areas of a 48-hour breakdown were Central and western parts of the city. In Liaquatabad, people came on to the streets and protested against the power breakdown and the indifferent attitude of the KESC. Their protest coincided with the Muttahida’s strike call, but power supply could not be restored.
Owing to the prolonged breakdown, students preparing for exams were the worst affected. Earlier, repeated jolts also damaged electrical appliances of many KESC consumers.
The KESC spokesman attributed the power breakdown on Tuesday night to an accidental fire at the grid station which was compounded by the six main cable faults at F.B. Area, causing power disruption.
At the Abuzar composite complaint centre and North Nazimabad, 41 complaints were lodged but no vehicle came out since 6am, the residents said.
When a complainant asked the duty officer who identified himself as Sami, he said that the AE, Muzaffar, had strictly ordered not to take any vehicle out unless security was provided.
It was surprising that while Metro buses were plying with armed rangers personnel on board, why the KESC vehicles were not provided the same.
A KESC consumer resident of B-23, Block J, North Nazimabad, said that his area was without electricity for a long time. In the morning, he was given complaint number 14 and in the evening his number was pushed to 24.
The breakdown exposed the lack of proper maintenance and upgradation of KESC’s 11 KV distribution system which has suffered during the KESC’s focus on recovery.
Meanwhile, the KESC spokesman claimed that about 60 workers and 20 KESC and army engineers worked non-stop for 48 hours to rehabilitate the Liaquatabad Grid Station and normalize power supply to Liaquatabad, Nazimabad and F.B. Area on Thursday.
Normally, such a major rehabilitation work takes at least 15- 20 days, but realizing the inconvenience, extra efforts were made by the KESC personnel and power supply to the affected area resumed speedily, the spokesman claimed.
Liaquatabad Grid has three transformers, one of 40 MVA and two of 30 MVA, which stopped functioning due to the burning of cable connected with them and carrying electricity to the area. Initially, a current transformer (CT) became faulty which was immediately changed but after a while another CT exploded due to heat. According to the KESC spokesman, the oil from the CT spread to the underground cable trench which caught fire and burned all the 27 main and high-tension cables, he added.
The spokesman said that all the 27 heavily-burnt cables were dug out, removed and replaced by new ones. The transformers and other equipment installed at the grid were also overhauled. All the three transformers were energized one after the other, as soon as the rehabilitation work finished.
Meanwhile, the plight of the residents of New Karachi, North Karachi, Surjani, Baldia Town, Buffer Zone, Malir, Shah Faisal, Mahmoodabad, Gulshan-i-Iqbal and Gulistan-i-Jauhar, and F.B. Area Block 20 was also quite similar.
A resident of Gulshan-i-Shamim, Block 9, F.B. Area, Shafiq Baig, rang up the area complaint centre at 10pm to report that his apartment was without electricity for the last 30 hours. His call to the complaint centre on telephone number 6378120 was not attended, he said.
The residents of an apartment complex in Gulshan-i-Iqbal Block 13-D/2 complained that ever since the heat wave hit Karachi some three to four days back, prolonged electricity failure has also hit their neighbourhood with full force.
They said that they faced all-day and all-night power failure on April 30, when power went off at around 1:00am in the night only to resume the next day at 2:45pm. It went off again about three to four times, at an average of 30 minutes each.
Hardly had they gotten over the game of hide and seek that the KESC played on them the day before, when the KESC again resorted to its old tricks the following Wednesday night, shutting off power supply at 1:30am, only to restore it around 5am — after a gap of about four hours.
The residents feared that the power utility may again resort to power shut again on Thursday night, making it three straight nights in a row.
